CUPE and Air Transat reach a tentative agreement

MONTREAL, Jan. 8, 2024 /CNW/ - On Sunday evening, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) concluded another tentative agreement aimed at renewing the collective agreement for the company's 2,100 flight attendants. General meetings of the members will be held in the next few days to reveal its content and submit it to their vote. Until then, CUPE will not issue any comments on the subject.

The collective agreement for these flight attendants, based at airports in Montreal (YUL) and Toronto (YYZ), expired on October 31, 2022. Negotiations began officially on April 27, 2023. On November 27, the flight attendants adopted a strike mandate by a nearly unanimous vote of 99.8%, by far the highest tally in the history of CUPE's Air Transat Component.

Subsequently, a tentative agreement between the parties was reached on December 14. But at general meetings held between December 20 and 23, the flight attendants voted 98.1% to reject it, with 87% of members participating.

The Air Transat Component is part of CUPE's Airline Division, which represents more than 18,500 flight attendants employed at Air Transat, Air Canada, Air Canada Rouge, Sunwing, WestJet, Encore, Calm Air, Canadian North, Pivot Airlines, Flair Airlines, PAL and Pascan.

CUPE is Canada's largest union with 740,000 members across the country. It represents workers in health care, emergency services, education, early learning and child care, municipalities, social services, libraries, utilities, transportation, airlines and more.

SOURCE Canadian Union of Public Employees (FTQ)