In January 2022, Air Canada unilaterally decided that if members had completed part of their five years of service with Rouge, it would not pay members who had moved into the In-Charge Service Director classification at the Level II wage scale per Article 5.06.01 of the collective agreement. This article reads:
5.06.01 Where a Flight Attendant moves into the In-Charge classification, s/he will be placed in LEVEL I of the Purser wage scale, as applicable with the following exception:
Exception: Flight attendants with more than five (5) years of complete service will be placed in Level II
The Union filed a grievance challenging Air Canada’s conduct on February 16, 2022. The Union took the position that the language in the collective agreement did not specify that the five years of services had to be completed at Mainline only and ought to include completed service at Rouge.
The Union and Air Canada arbitrated the grievance before Arbitrator Mark Wright on May 27, 2024.
Arbitrator Wright issued a decision dismissing the Union’s grievance. When reading Article 5.06.01 in the context of the collective agreement, he preferred Air Canada’s interpretation. Accordingly, it was not necessary to explicitly refer to completed service “at Mainline” in Article 5.06.01. He also accepted that where the parties intended to include both service at Rouge and Mainline, they had said so expressly in other articles. Finally, Arbitrator Wright concluded that article 5.06.01 is legacy language that predates the inception of Rouge and at the time only applied to Mainline. The bottom line is that in order to receive a Level II wage scale, only completed service at mainline will be considered.
While the decision is disappointing, Arbitrator Wright left open the possibility of the Union to bargain change in the language of Article 5.06.01 to include completed years of service at Rouge.
You can download a complete copy of Arbitrator Wright’s award here.