Sask labour backs CUPE flight attendants

The Saskatchewan Federation of Labour (SFL) endorses CUPE and their Air Canada Component’s defiance of the Carney government’s unjust back to work order, issued just hours after ten thousand flight attendants hit the picket line.

“Let me be clear: if you’re on of the job, you should be paid,” said SFL President Lori Johb about what’s at stake in this labour dispute. “But the Liberals are all too quick to bust a union for their corporate friends.”

Johb notes the 2015 SFL v. Saskatchewan decision at the Supreme Court that gave ‘constitutional benediction’ to the right of Canadian workers to withdraw their labour, as a critical component to meaningful collective bargaining. “Saskatchewan is the birthplace of the constitutional right to strike. When the government and a corporation collude to quash collective bargaining, unions across province and the country have no choice but to fight back,” she said.

As a voting member of the Canadian Council of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC), the SFL enthusiastically supported the unanimous resolution at Sunday’s meeting to:

1. Support the continued job action of CUPE flight attendants.
2. Demand Prime Minister Carney cease the use of Section 107 of the Canadian Labour Code.

The SFL is actively coordinating support and solidarity for the strike from dozens of member unions representing 100,000 Saskatchewan workers.