Globe: Flying into the two-tier wage world

[sourdick]

AirCanada is having labour problems. After unions representing their flight attendants failed to secure a ratified vote on (a second) agreed upon deals with the airline, the attendants were ready to walk. Federal Labour Minister Lisa Raitt asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board to review stalled contract talks at the airline. In so doing, she

Comments

[suitablyemoname]

Do the flight attendants deserve better than their offer? Is the 46K offered by Air Canada a fair salary for a job that requires only a 7 week internal training given by the airline and no university education?

A job which also:
- Involves 14 to 20-hour days as a matter of routine, and will fuck with your sleep schedule so much that it will take several years off your life. (No, really, they've done studies.)
- Gives you absolutely no control over any aspect of your workplace. Half of your actions are strictly regulated by international law, while the other half are even more closely monitored by the airline. In many cases, flight attendants aren't even allowed to do trivial things like give a free soft drink to an especially helpful passenger. Every second of your time is managed and controlled by someone else, and even if this forces you to do things you find frustrating or distasteful ("No, sir, you can't have a glass of water to take your pills unless you front me the $2 for a bottle."), you just kind of have to suck it up and

[sourdick]

Lots of jobs are shitty: news at 11.

Having a shitty job doesnt necessarily equal a good salary, nor should it be some sort of golden rule. Some shitty jobs get decent pay, others dont. I bet the guy who cleans the toilets at Walmart can fire off some bullet points about his jobs negative points. Or low level employees at any big company.

Nothing changes the fact that these people are 100% completely replaceable. That doesnt mean I hate them, or that they're bad people. Its just supply and demand. Its not realistic to give them a lot of money when the airline can replace anyone displeased with their working conditions.

[suitablyemoname]

No, sorry: you don't get to dismiss it like that. Flight attendants have an unusually shitty job, as I think I've just ably demonstrated. (That guy who cleans the toilets at Walmart? He still works 8-hour days. He still goes home to his own bed every night. He still gets to spend time with his family. He still doesn't get hit on by drunken businessmen. He still has a surprising amount of control over his workplace. On virtually every metric, he comes out miles ahead of the flight attendant.)

And you're right. Flight attendants are 100% completely replaceable. In fact, turnover amongst new flight attendants is a significant problem: turnover within the profession generally is comparatively low (in large part because of those Big Bad Unions), but the newbies get chewed through like hamburger. And every newbie means another two months of training, plus another six to twelve months of junior service. Bearing in mind that it costs about the equivalent of a year's salary to recruit someone to fill a vacant full-time position, the cost of

[sourdick]

Its the airlines choice. If they want to retain people, they can either A) improve working conditions (unlikely by your summarized bullet points) or B) increase their pay (the airline seems unwilling to do so).

Its within the rights of the airline to NOT pay them more, and they're free to walk off the job. The cost of training then is shuffled into the cost of doing business.

What exactly is Air Canada doing wrong here?

[suitablyemoname]

I haven't argued that Air Canada is doing anything wrong. I have argued that several of your points are nonsensical and demonstrably false.

[sourdick]

All you did was list a bunch of reasons why you think their job is somehow worthy of sadness and pity. In a perfect world we'd pay dollars for tears, and you'd be rich beyond your dreams.

They're free to go apply at Zellers if they don't like sleeping in Guelph instead of Calgary.

[suitablyemoname]

And all you appear to have in your corner is sarcasm and dismissal, along with mischaracterizing my arguments to a point where you're just straight-up telling me I've said things which don't even resemble the actual words I have typed.