This is the moment to defend the right to strike in Canada | CCPA
www.policyalternatives.ca
The ongoing strike by CUPE flight attendants at Air Canada has sparked a moment in the Canadian labour movement. Unions across Canada have been pledging their support for CUPE flight attendants and showing up on picket lines at major airports.

Published Aug 18th, 2025
Written by former NDP MP, Peggy Nash

Air Canada workers are on the front lines of defending a crucial constitutional right from being eroded. We must support them with everything we’ve got.

Over 70 per cent of this workforce at Air Canada is women. I began my union work with Air Canada as a passenger agent at Pearson airport. In bargaining with Air Canada in the 1980s. I remember then, when we, overwhelmingly women, pressed for wage increases, and an Air Canada executive shrugged this off saying that as women we were just working for ‘pin money’. It seems their views of women have not advanced in over 40 years.