The recent labour dispute between Air Canada and its flight attendants pulled back the curtain on one of the airline industry's longest-standing injustices: flight attendants are paid only when planes are in motion , a practice that has persisted for more than 60 years across the global aviation industry.
Author
- Isabelle Dostaler
Vice-rectrice aux études et à la recherche, Université de l'Ontario français
On Aug. 14, Air Canada began cancelling flights ahead of a potential strike to allow an "orderly shutdown." The strike started on Aug. 16, but less than 12 hours into it, the federal government attempted to force binding arbitration between the airline and its union.
The union defied the government order to return to work - an order that was never ratified by the court - until a tentative agreement was reached in the early hours of Aug. 19.
Much was at stake during the conflict, and both unions and carriers around the world likely followed it closely. Passenger traffic had returned to pre-pandemic levels, but profit margins were still thin . Stable fuel prices provided some financial relief, but economic and geopolitical uncertainties made carriers cautious about increasing labour costs.
The union, of course, had a very different perspective. For them, the dispute was an attempt to break new grounds and see compensation for ground duties become the new norm across the industry.
Why has such unfairness endured?
The persistence of unpaid ground time in the aviation industry can be explained through institutional isomorphism theory, a concept introduced by sociologists Paul DiMaggio and Walter Powell in 1983 .
While organizational theorists had traditionally focused on the variety of organizational structures and strategies , DiMaggio and Powell argued that, over time, organizations in the same field tend to look and behave alike.
Institutional isomorphism helps explain why managers in the aviation industry often conform to established practices, even when change might make business sense. While we tend to think business performance is the primary goal pursued by managers, a key driver of their behaviour is actually legitimacy.
For example, while offering higher salaries to attract employees to an industry still suffering from a labour shortage might be a rational business decision, the reluctance to act differently from companies in the same sector can outweigh that logic.
The forces sustaining unpaid ground time
DiMaggio and Powell defined three types of institutional isomorphism: coercive, mimetic and normative. First, coercive isomorphism refers to the pressures organizations face from formal and informal constraints in an industry. Such constraints are particularly acute in air transportation, which is highly regulated in order to guarantee safety to passengers.
Within this regulatory framework, airtime - the period of time when an aircraft is in the air between takeoff and landing - has become a standard industry measure. Aviation authorities and industry bodies such as the International Air Transport Association , the International Civil Aviation Organization and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency have all reinforced its use by embedding it in the safety standards, operational practices and regulatory frameworks that airlines and national regulators must follow.
The concept of airtime also endured due to mimetic isomorphism, which occurs when organizations imitate the practices of others. In the case of aviation, reproducing historical practices like pay structures has allowed airlines to cope with the uncertainty of a business that has become highly cyclical ever since deregulation started in the United States in 1978 .
The last, and one of the most interesting processes pushing organizations to look alike, is normative isomorphism. This refers to the influence of educational institutions and professional networks on organizational behavior.
It stems from the professionalization of work , according DiMaggio and Powell. Nurses, doctors, engineers, accountants, pilots and flight attendants all identify with their professions at least as much as they identify with the company they work for, if not more.
Air transport was a prestigious domain in its early days, which might have contributed to the belief that "real work" meant work in the air. In this sense, flight attendants themselves may have unintentionally helped reinforce this norm.
Could the Air Canada dispute spark a shift?
The Air Canada dispute may mark a turning point for labour standards in the airline industry.
In the post-pandemic period, when delays have been frequent due to labour shortages among mechanics, air traffic controllers and pilots, the unfairness of not paying flight attendants for work performed on the ground has become more visible.
A union victory on this front has the potential to create a snowball effect, with unpaid ground time becoming an illegitimate practice in the industry.
Whether the high-profile Air Canada labour dispute will cause a paradigm shift that causes ground pay to become the new norm in the airline industry remains to be seen. What does seem likely, however, is that after standing by the flight attendants despite the inconvenience and disruptions caused by the strike, the travelling public may view such a profound institutional change in a positive light.
Isabelle Dostaler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
