In today’s news and commentary, WestJet flight attendants go on strike, and the American Federation of Government Employees challenges another VA attempt to terminate its collective bargaining agreement.

Over 4,000 WestJet flight attendants represented by the Canadian Union of Public Employees are currently on strike after CBA negotiations between the airline and the union broke down earlier this week. WestJet, the second-largest airline in Canada and the eight-largest in North America, announced that the strike has resulted in the cancellation of 309 flights as of Sunday morning. These cancellations come during a period of busy holiday traffic as travellers celebrate Canada’s Civic Day long weekend. WestJet flight attendants cite the airline’s refusal to compromise over wages as motivating their strike with unpaid groundwork being a particularly contentious issue. Attendants are currently not compensated for work they do on the ground, both before takeoff and after landing. As I covered last year, Air Canada flight attendants went on strike for similar issues until the Canadian government forced them back to work using Section 107 of the Canadian Labor Code. Section 107, increasingly used by Liberal governments to force striking workers in federally regulated industries back to work, could also be used to end the WestJet strike. In the case of Air Canada, flight attendants ultimately won partial ground pay through state-mandated binding arbitration.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is challenging a third attempt by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to terminate its collective bargaining agreement. On Tuesday, AFGE filed a motion in the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island asking the court to enforce prior orders for the VA to bargain. As I covered in March, District Judge Melissa Dubose issued a preliminary injunction preventing the VA from terminating a CBA covering over 300,000 agency workers. Judge Dubose issued another order for the VA several weeks later to enforce the injunction after the agency again attempted to terminate the agreement. Now, the VA seeks to terminate the CBA on the grounds that the agreement expires on August 8th and the agency is under no obligation to extend the contract or negotiate a new one. However, AFGE argues that the CBA contains a “Duration of Agreement” provision that automatically extends the existing contract for so long as “renegotiation… is in progress.” Because the VA and AFGE began preliminary contract negotiations over email on May 19th, within the 30-day window during which the Duration of Agreement provision can trigger, the union contends that the agency cannot terminate the contract.