The head of the union representing WestJet flight attendants called the agreement reached Monday “meaningful progress on the issues.”
CUPE Local 8125 president Alia Hussain spoke to the media from Calgary.
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“It improves on the long-standing flight credit system by recognizing more of the work that cabin crew are required to perform and increasing the compensation for that work,” she said.
Hussain said just as important was the fact the deal was reached through the collective bargaining process, with no intervention by the federal government.
“The parties remained at the table and worked through the outstanding issues,” she said.
“Eventually the puzzle pieces came together in a way that made sense for us to take to our membership.”
Hussain said the focus now turns to the membership.
“We’re going to take it (the deal) out to our membership, and we have to have that ratified within 30 days,” she said.
Hussain wouldn’t share any details of the new deal publicly before sharing them with union members.
“We’ll be sharing that shortly, but it does expand on the flight credit system and captures it in a way that the flight credit system itself wasn’t capturing,” she said.
She added WestJet’s offer had “evolved” from Saturday’s in a way that it made sense to take it to the members.
As far as getting flight attendants back to work and flights in the air, Hussain said a ramp-up agreement was signed early Monday with WestJet to get operations back to normal as quickly as possible.
