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.
Potential gain for WJ F/A
Moderators: sky's the limit, sepia, Sulako, lilfssister, North Shore, I WAS Birddog
Potential gain for WJ F/A
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metal overcast
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. I thought this was an AC FA group that was being discussed in the article?
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Canus Chinookus
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Thanks rebel,Rebel wrote:quote;
"The judgment could have wide implications for pay-equity cases at Crown corporations like Canada Post, in the federal public service, and in private companies - mainly in the transportation and communications fields - that fall under federal regulation."
I still think it would affect AC way before it got to WJ, just a wierd title for the topic....ohhhhh, right it was Blastor....sorry.
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Jaques Strappe
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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.
