Saturday, federal Jobs Minister Patty Hajdu directed the CIRB to order both parties to resume operations and resolve their lingering labour dispute through binding arbitration.
To do so, she invoked powers under section 107 of Canada Labour Code, an increasingly controversial power that the Liberals have used roughly a handful of times over the past decade to order federally-legislated industries back to work without going through back-to-work legislation.
Her decision has sparked the ire of all major federal unions, who said in a joint statement through the Canadian Labour Congress Sunday that they stood behind Air Canada flight attendants’ decision to keep striking.
CLC President Bea Bruske said in a statement that union heads came out of an emergency meeting Sunday evening “with a clear message to push back against the government’s attacks on workers’ rights: an attack on one is an attack on all.”
