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WestJet flight attendants have ratified a new collective agreement with the airline, with a 90.2 per cent vote in favour of the deal.<\/p>\n
“This is a strong mandate from our members and recognition of the meaningful gains we made at the bargaining table,” Alia Hussain, president of CUPE 8125, said in a news release.<\/p>\n
“This is only our second contract, and we made important progress, including making sure our members are compensated for more of the work they already do.”<\/p>\n
The Canadian Union of Public Employees said the agreement includes a more than 18 per cent wage hike over three years as well as new compensation for work done on the ground.<\/p>\n
The contract will give workers a 13 per cent wage increase this October, followed by a 2.75 per cent hike in January and a 2.5 per cent raise at the start of 2028.<\/p>\n
The airline did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Contract talks had been ongoing since January, with WestJet and the CUPE WestJet Component at odds over wage increases and the cabin crews’ claim of unpaid ground work.<\/p>\n
The union had long complained that much of the work done when members are not in the air is unpaid. WestJet, however, had argued all duties are compensated through a “credit hour” system rather than an hourly rate.<\/p>\n
The new three-year agreement is in effect from Jan. 1, 2026, until Dec. 31, 2028.<\/p>\n
The deal followed tough negotiations, particularly around boarding pay, that culminated in a one-day strike by some 4,400 cabin crew earlier this month.<\/p>\n
WestJet’s flight schedule gradually ramped up after more than 900 flight cancellations at the peak of the summer travel period.<\/p>\n
The aviation industry has been rattled by a series of labour actions over the past several years, with strikes by Air Canada flight attendants and WestJet mechanics briefly bringing operations at the country’s two biggest airlines to a halt.<\/p>\n
WestJet operates more than 600 flights a day, carrying more than 70,000 passengers on some days. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":870482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48],"class_list":["post-870481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}