Following the rejection of a contract offer by Air Canada flight attendants Saturday, one business analyst said there could be turbulence ahead -- and a few Calgary travellers say they support the flight attendants. Announced Saturday by the Air Canada component of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), flight attendants voted 99.1 per cent against the employer’s offer. The union said voter turnout was 94.6 per cent. Ian Lee, a business analyst and associate professor at Carleton University, described the near-unanimous rejection as unusual. “Typically, when a union negotiating team negotiates a deal, they have a good sense of what the membership wants, because the membership has to vote for it (...) normally (members) do support the agreement,” Lee told CTV News Channel on Sunday. “I can’t remember the last time that 99 per cent of the members voted, overturned or voted down the deal negotiated by their own leadership.” Lee added that the outcome suggests that members are “very, very upset” and that there will be “problems ahead.” According to Air Canada, if the tentative agreement was not approved, the topic of wages would be referred to mediation and possibly to arbitration. The company also noted that both parties agreed that no labour disruption could be initiated, strike or lock-out, and flights will continue to operate. While Air Canada notes negotiations have been challenging, they remain “fully committed to the mediation and arbitration process.” At the Calgary International Airport Sunday, traveller Gabriella Kuczynski said she sympathized with the flight attendants. " I totally support all the flight attendants rejecting the contract offer," she said. “They do a lot of work that seems to be unpaid,” she added. “I know I more recently learned about the hours that they put in, during boarding and checking people in, and even just on the plane before it’s in the air. “They’re asking for the bare minimum, and I think that they deserve what they’re asking for, and it’s totally fair if they wanted to reject the current deal that they were presented.” Theresa Carruthers was on the way to Portugal, and said she supports flight attendants. “The airlines have been taking their fair chunk out of all of us for a long time,” Carruthers said, “so I think it’s okay for these guys to keep fighting.” For Toronto employment lawyer Keith Burkhardt, the rejection was expected. “The fact that it was rejected by over 99 per cent is a bit of a surprise, however, the union was not happy, and its members were not happy with how this process has played out,” he told CTV News Channel after the announcement on Saturday. “I think there’s a number of union members who would feel like there was no downside to actually rejecting the offer and hoping they can do better at arbitration.” “It’s still a bit of catch up from the COVID years and from inflation that we saw during that period of time. I think that we are seeing a number of situations as well where employers are returning to profitability and unions are saying we need to be able to have our members participate in the profitability of these companies,” he added. Burkhardt said the contract rejection represents a larger trend. “The world is more expensive today, and unions are trying to keep up with that and we’re also seeing a real pushback towards some corporate authority that we’ve seen in the past,” he said. With files from CTV’s Robin Della Corte and Tyler Barrow
