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Air Canada and a union representing the airline’s flight attendants have come to a tentative agreement, ending a days-long strike that canceled thousands of flights and stranded passengers.
“Flight attendants at Air Canada and Air Canada Rouge have reached a tentative agreement, achieving transformational change for our industry after a historic fight to affirm our Charter rights,” said Hugh Pouliot, spokesman for the Canadian Union for Public Employees (CUPE), in a statement Tuesday. “Unpaid work is over. We have reclaimed our voice and our power.”
Union members will need to vote on the agreement to make it permanent. If they vote it down, the strike could resume.
The two sides came back to the table Monday night for the first time since the strike began Saturday.
All flights may not resume immediately. The airline said last week that it could take a week to fully resume its schedule. It began winding down its operations Thursday, two days before the strike was set to take place.
“The suspension of our service is extremely difficult for our customers. We deeply regret and apologize for the impact on them of this labour disruption,” Air Canada said in a statement Tuesday. “Our priority now is to get them moving as quickly as possible.”
The strike took place in spite of an order from the Canadian Jobs Minister, instructing Air Canada and its employees to resume operations and end the strike.
Members of the Air Canada component of CUPE voted 99.7% in favor of the strike last week and walked out around 1 a.m. ET Saturday. The workers were seeking wage increases and paid compensation for work when planes are grounded.
About 10,000 flight attendants went on strike, stranding 130,000 passengers.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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