Reflecting on the successful wildcat strike by Air Canada baggage handlers and the pilots’ ‘sick-out’ strikes in the same year.
There were no penalties, and a hundred flights were cancelled — a total victory.
In light of the disappointing outcome of last august’s strike, it is worth revisiting some of our history.
8 March 2012. Stephen Harper’s Conservative government and his Minister of Labour, Lisa Raitt, passed a special law prohibiting any walkouts by the airline.
On 22 March, when Ms Raitt visited Toronto Pearson Airport, a few baggage handlers gave her ironic applause.
Three of them were suspended without pay a few hours later. That same evening, baggage handlers at Pearson stopped work without instruction from the union.
The strike continued the next day, spreading first to Montreal airport at around 6 :30 a.m. and then to Quebec City airport at around 10 :30 a.m. The union called for workers to return to their posts in Toronto, but to no avail.

More than a hundred flights were cancelled. Ms Raitt missed her next flight by several hours. That same evening, the three baggage handlers were reinstated and compensated for lost wages, and an arbitrator guaranteed that no sanctions would be taken against the strikers. The baggage handlers returned to work with their heads held high, knowing that they had forced their employer and the government to back down.

In the following days, inspired by the baggage handlers, a group of pilots organised ‘sick-outs’ or ‘sick strikes’, independent of their union. Coordinated calls to call in sick paralysed several flights. A judge ruled that this constituted an illegal strike, and the union denounced the action, calling on the pilots to return to work.
Nevertheless, this helped to break the deadlock in negotiations and pushed the company to abandon its hardline.

The memory of these events should remind us that union slogans and government decrees do not mark the end of the struggle. If workers take back control of their own struggle and organize at the grassroots level to challenge bosses, ministers, and union leaders, victory becomes possible.
The goal of the grassroots committee is to bring together flight attendants who want to organize and continue the struggle, put an end to unpaid work and impoverishment, and clearly, this will happen through the rediscovery of means of action outside of official union methods.