Flight attendants win case against Air Canada By RICHARD BLACKWELL
Thursday, January 26, 2006 Posted at 11:48 AM EST
Globe and Mail Update
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Tuesday that Air Canada's flight attendants can compare their pay with that of pilots and ground crews to determine if they are being discriminated against because of gender.
The top court said it is fair to make the comparison, because the flight attendants, pilots and ground crews all work for the same organization in the same business.
Air Canada had argued that each of the groups is covered under a different collective agreement, so a comparison would not be valid. The top court rejected that view.
The Supreme Court did not rule on the merits of the flight attendants' case, saying merely that it is legitimate for the comparisons to be made.
Describing the issue as a ”preliminary but important question” in pay-equity cases, the court noted that ”assessing the relative skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions involved in the occupational group ... may or may not result in the conclusion that discrimination has taken place.”
But those comparisons should be made, the judges ruled, because the Air Canada employees are part of the same ”establishment,” even though they work under different collective agreements.
The court sent the case back to the Canadian Human Rights Commission to determine if Air Canada actually discriminated against the flight attendants by paying them less for work of equal value to that of the male-dominated pilots and ground crews.
Writing for the court, Mr. Justice Louis LeBel and Madam Justice Rosalie Abella criticized Air Canada for dragging the case out for 15 years, ”creating enormous expense for itself and the public, and intolerable delay in wage equity, should the flight attendants ultimately succeed.”
The case has been working its way through tribunals and appeal courts since 1991, when the Canadian Union of Public Employees first made a complaint to the human-rights commission on behalf of female flight attendants at Air Canada and now-defunct Canadian Airlines International.
The flight attendants said they were paid differently for work that was of equal value to that performed by the male-dominated mechanical crews and pilots.
The commission said the case was legitimate. A subsequent tribunal ruled, however, that the flight attendants could not compare their salaries to those of pilots and ground staff because the groups worked for different establishments governed by different collective agreements.
The Federal Court agreed with the tribunal, but the Federal Court of Appeal said the comparison was okay.
The Supreme Court has now agreed with the appeal court, coming down on the side of the flight attendants.
The ruling opens up the possibility of cross-comparisons of wages between other groups that are not in the same union.
Air Canada's approach, if it had been endorsed, would ”turn collective bargaining into a tool to consolidate discriminatory practices,” the justices said.
Only in Canada!
Moderators: North Shore, sky's the limit, sepia, Sulako
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Just another driver
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I’m sorry but I fail to see how being a flight attendant is of “equal value” to the fight crew. Did they spend 50K on training? Working 6-7 days a week only to make poverty wage for the first few years? How about spending 10 years to get to the majors to again be paid less than the night shift manager at Wendy’s for 2 more years? I don’t think so.
Why the hell does this group feel entitled to the same pay as a professional sitting up front driving the damn thing? Oh wait that coffee is hot, and tossing a few cookies around is real hard work.
This should be interesting.
Why the hell does this group feel entitled to the same pay as a professional sitting up front driving the damn thing? Oh wait that coffee is hot, and tossing a few cookies around is real hard work.
This should be interesting.
Go big or go home
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Fred Flinstone
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This sounds like total BS! But lets look at it this way, maybe starting pay for pilots will go up because the court see's it as an injustice. Now that you all have fallen off your chairs laughing so hard have a good day. Something to talk about when flying! 
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slowstream
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I am glad to see that I am not the only person who is insenced by this comment/ruling by the judge. I am not disqualifying how hard these flight attendents work (or not) and that they do have responsibilities but this is just plain dumb. You can not compare the groups; when these F/A's put as much into their education/training and pay as many dues as pilots do to get to that level as a A/C pilot, then and only then should a comparison be done! I don't fly for A/C but I think I would be having a little bit of a difficult time at work with the back end crew if they started spouting.The court sent the case back to the Canadian Human Rights Commission to determine if Air Canada actually discriminated against the flight attendants by paying them less for work of equal value to that of the male-dominated pilots and ground crews
Yet another example of how poor of court system is and how much it has deterieated...............but that's only my two cents!
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flynbutcher
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Hey,
Aside from what has been expressed above, I have a problem with the following sentence in particular.
"The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Tuesday that Air Canada's flight attendants can compare their pay with that of pilots and ground crews to determine if they are being discriminated against because of gender."
Can someone explain what the hell GENDER has to do with pay??? Now I realise that the stats prove that a woman CEO will get less $$$ than the male CEO she replaces but you can't compare the role of a pilot to a mechanic or a flight attendent they are all different, although all are responsible for teh safety of the people on the aircraft.
I am ranting and therefore signing off, my apologies.
Goodnight
Aside from what has been expressed above, I have a problem with the following sentence in particular.
"The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Tuesday that Air Canada's flight attendants can compare their pay with that of pilots and ground crews to determine if they are being discriminated against because of gender."
Can someone explain what the hell GENDER has to do with pay??? Now I realise that the stats prove that a woman CEO will get less $$$ than the male CEO she replaces but you can't compare the role of a pilot to a mechanic or a flight attendent they are all different, although all are responsible for teh safety of the people on the aircraft.
I am ranting and therefore signing off, my apologies.
Goodnight
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ScudRunner
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Tiger Lead
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- Location: Ontario
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Fresh Prince of King Air
- Rank 3
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- Joined: Sun May 22, 2005 11:02 am
Just curious here, but for some reason I don't think AC is going to hire one flight attendant over another because he or she has served coffee on an aircaft equiped with a glass cockpit or has a T/O weight of +12500.
Give me a break!
If that is the case AC should have paid for my training to be a pilot right out of highscool and then paid me an above average wage with an exellent pension to boot!
I guess that is how it will be in the future....
Oh wait...No it wont!
Give me a break!
If that is the case AC should have paid for my training to be a pilot right out of highscool and then paid me an above average wage with an exellent pension to boot!
I guess that is how it will be in the future....
Oh wait...No it wont!
Just a thought!
If people aren't sure how important good Cabin Crew are?
Why don't you ask all the pax that survived the Air France crash @YYZ?
Remember they are there primarily for safety first, then service (705 ops).
If that doesn't change your mind or ease your opinion of how unimportant their job is then you try to deal with some of the rude, ill-tempered pax.
I work with F/A's every flight, they sometimes have a tougher job than the pilots do.
Yes, as pilots, we received considerable training and for the most part we have paid our dues.
But, remember some F/A's don't have the protection of 14hr duty limits, etc. They are required to stay calm and be on customer service mode all the time. I'll admit that some are better than others(the same can be said in any industry and yes, that includes pilots) but dealing with customers all the time can be very difficult and requires a particular skill.
I think that some of you should give them a little more credit than you're affording them. Because the day that the "sh*t hits the fan", is the day you'll be thankful that you have an F/A on board to take on some of the workload with the pax. Trust-me!!
If people aren't sure how important good Cabin Crew are?
Why don't you ask all the pax that survived the Air France crash @YYZ?
Remember they are there primarily for safety first, then service (705 ops).
If that doesn't change your mind or ease your opinion of how unimportant their job is then you try to deal with some of the rude, ill-tempered pax.
I work with F/A's every flight, they sometimes have a tougher job than the pilots do.
Yes, as pilots, we received considerable training and for the most part we have paid our dues.
But, remember some F/A's don't have the protection of 14hr duty limits, etc. They are required to stay calm and be on customer service mode all the time. I'll admit that some are better than others(the same can be said in any industry and yes, that includes pilots) but dealing with customers all the time can be very difficult and requires a particular skill.
I think that some of you should give them a little more credit than you're affording them. Because the day that the "sh*t hits the fan", is the day you'll be thankful that you have an F/A on board to take on some of the workload with the pax. Trust-me!!
Pay equity hits turbulence: Airline's fight highlights flaws in 'comparable work' claim
CALGARY HERALD
02/06/2006
One of the stumbling blocks to Canadian business is pay equity, which surfaced recently in a case involving Air Canada. Air hostesses, represented by CUPE, claim the national carrier undervalues their work by comparison with mechanics and pilots.
Given the years of preparation it takes to safely negotiate a 747 with 400 people aboard about the globe, a salary discrepancy seems reasonable.
However, in the topsy-turvy world of pay equity, reason is not trumps. It doesn't mean, as one might suppose, that men and women doing the same work, should get the same pay. (Air Canada already pays male and female pilots off the same grid, and attendants of both sexes at equivalent rates.)
But, for rights advocates, pay equity assumes dinosaur employers keep underpaid women in pink-collar ghettoes doing so-called women's work, while male employees otherwise occupied are properly compensated.
Rather than bias, however, it could be the premium attached to scarce trades.
But, when an inequity is shown, courts can order a mostly female staff to be paid what a male-dominated group earns for "comparable work."
But, how does one rate data entry against driving a truck? Or, in Air Canada's case, handling an aircraft, against controlling the exit procedures from it in an emergency? (Which is the main reason flight attendants are on board -- not to serve coffee.)
This dilemma, though, hasn't thwarted courts in their eagerness to reorder the workplace.
Ontario's former NDP government set the pace, allowing comparisons between female-dominated trades and male-dominated trades in different workplaces. The Harris Tories tried to rid of it. But, it was challenged in court and reinstated.
The flight attendants' claim now goes to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
Although it may take some years to resolve -- Air Canada has kept this just above the stall since 1991 -- the ramifications of state interference in the market go much beyond the federally regulated enterprises the rights tribunal rules on. It has the capacity to spread to the unregulated economy and, in diminishing the premium skill and excellence command, encourage the skilled and excellent to seek employment outside Canada, where their merits can be recognized.
CALGARY HERALD
02/06/2006
One of the stumbling blocks to Canadian business is pay equity, which surfaced recently in a case involving Air Canada. Air hostesses, represented by CUPE, claim the national carrier undervalues their work by comparison with mechanics and pilots.
Given the years of preparation it takes to safely negotiate a 747 with 400 people aboard about the globe, a salary discrepancy seems reasonable.
However, in the topsy-turvy world of pay equity, reason is not trumps. It doesn't mean, as one might suppose, that men and women doing the same work, should get the same pay. (Air Canada already pays male and female pilots off the same grid, and attendants of both sexes at equivalent rates.)
But, for rights advocates, pay equity assumes dinosaur employers keep underpaid women in pink-collar ghettoes doing so-called women's work, while male employees otherwise occupied are properly compensated.
Rather than bias, however, it could be the premium attached to scarce trades.
But, when an inequity is shown, courts can order a mostly female staff to be paid what a male-dominated group earns for "comparable work."
But, how does one rate data entry against driving a truck? Or, in Air Canada's case, handling an aircraft, against controlling the exit procedures from it in an emergency? (Which is the main reason flight attendants are on board -- not to serve coffee.)
This dilemma, though, hasn't thwarted courts in their eagerness to reorder the workplace.
Ontario's former NDP government set the pace, allowing comparisons between female-dominated trades and male-dominated trades in different workplaces. The Harris Tories tried to rid of it. But, it was challenged in court and reinstated.
The flight attendants' claim now goes to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
Although it may take some years to resolve -- Air Canada has kept this just above the stall since 1991 -- the ramifications of state interference in the market go much beyond the federally regulated enterprises the rights tribunal rules on. It has the capacity to spread to the unregulated economy and, in diminishing the premium skill and excellence command, encourage the skilled and excellent to seek employment outside Canada, where their merits can be recognized.
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Hadji Ramjet
- Rank 2
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- Location: Back in the great white north
Are you implying that if you don't have pay equity with pilots you won't be as good? Or that you'll move on to greener and presumably higher-paying pastures? Or perhaps that since you currently DON'T have pay equity with pilots, the best candidates have decided to seek their fortunes outside of Canada?If people aren't sure how important good Cabin Crew are?
Why don't you ask all the pax that survived the Air France crash @YYZ?
Insofar as the second sentence is concerned, would the corollary be that the families of all passengers who survived crashes but failed to get out of the wreck should blame the airline because they didn't pay their flight attendants more?
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Fresh Prince of King Air
- Rank 3
- Posts: 145
- Joined: Sun May 22, 2005 11:02 am
"One of the stumbling blocks to Canadian business is pay equity, which surfaced recently in a case involving Air Canada. Air hostesses, represented by CUPE, claim the national carrier undervalues their work by comparison with mechanics and pilots."
I guess that means that the AME's at mainline and Jazz will be getting a raise if they equalize the pay scales.[/quote]
I guess that means that the AME's at mainline and Jazz will be getting a raise if they equalize the pay scales.[/quote]
I read an interesting thought on another thread somewhere on this topic. Considering that at the time the complaint was filed, (some years ago) there was no educational, medical requirement as well as no experience or second language required to be a F/A, the board of review could very well determine that the F/A's are OVERPAID in comparison to other groups at AC. Wouldn't Pam just love that!! LOL
Well then.. How long does it take to train an F/A to safety and airline standards? It's only a few weeks is it not? How long does it take to train an airline captain and FO?
It amuses me that they think this is an equal rights issue. They are well paid for the work they do, there are incredible benefits and good working conditions.
It's not the company or pilots group fault that you make less than they do. It would be like me as a labourer at a construction site pissing and moaning about how the crane operator makes 10 fold what I do and he "sits there all day"
Get a grip F/A's.
It amuses me that they think this is an equal rights issue. They are well paid for the work they do, there are incredible benefits and good working conditions.
It's not the company or pilots group fault that you make less than they do. It would be like me as a labourer at a construction site pissing and moaning about how the crane operator makes 10 fold what I do and he "sits there all day"
Get a grip F/A's.
Wait lets use this to our advantage. Doesn't Air Canada have their own doctor? Lets see if pilots can get paid the same as them. Hey no more 37K a year to start! According to the courts it doesn't matter if its the same job. We all work for the same company. What a flippin joke this is.
