Transcript
Zain
0:01
This is a strategist episode 1881. My name is Zain Velji. With me as always, Shannon Phillips and Stephen Carter.
Zain
0:09
Beautiful face, Mr. Carter. He's actually, we told him we're recording at 7 a.m., Shannon, and he decided to sleep at his desk. And he's now just waking up.
Shannon
0:18
good morning. He's just going to spend the entire sort of intro banter complaining about how early it is. Just have a cup of coffee and get going, Carter. Shannon, rule number one is we
Zain
0:26
we don't acknowledge the intro banter. We don't acknowledge that it exists.
Shannon
0:31
fact is that this is the time when adults are awake doing work. Yeah,
Zain
0:37
Some of them even work throughout the night to reach a deal.
Carter
0:41
Ooh, good segue. That
Zain
0:43
That was nice. I'm
Shannon
0:43
I'm just going to do the meta commentary today. That's what I'm doing. Yeah,
Zain
0:47
no problem. Carter, I want to make sure that you're going to be aware and cogent for this episode. You've probably been sleeping at your desk for weeks now, hoping that we record. cord
Carter
0:57
i was for the last four days hoping that their canada would reach a deal uh so that's
Carter
1:03
that's what i was waiting for now i can still i'll still be sleeping at my desk waiting for canada post to reach their deal yeah
Zain
1:10
so at a time one
Carter
1:11
one deal at a time yeah
Zain
1:13
uh speaking of which i should mention that this episode carter uh is brought to us by our sponsor flight airlines uh flight airlines you have to have flight attendants in order to go on strike that's It's actually their new slogan. They've actually just sent us the updated copy.
Zain
1:28
They've just sent it over to us. And I wanted to make sure. They said, make it a timely read. I said, oh, I will.
Zain
1:35
That's good. Oh, I will.
Carter
1:37
Where's Corey? Who's playing Corey, the role of Corey today?
Zain
1:40
What upsets me is, do you think this protest in front of Corey's office will still go ahead?
Zain
1:46
I hope so. No, I don't think so.
Shannon
1:47
so. Oh, come on. I
Shannon
1:48
I was planning to
Zain
1:49
to go. I'm going rain or shine, deal or no deal. I was going to go regardless. Let's go.
Carter
1:55
What time is it at?
Shannon
1:56
Two o'clock in the afternoon?
Shannon
1:57
I think it's 12 to one. 12 to one on Wednesday. A fucking reasonable
Zain
2:05
You're probably going to accuse us of doxing, but I think we should go. I
Zain
2:08
think we all should encourage the listeners to go. What's his fucking
Carter
2:10
fucking address? Let's read it out loud.
Zain
2:13
Carter, you find the address in the meantime. It's public information.
Shannon
2:15
information. It's just off Crowchild. Shannon, our lister is
Zain
2:19
is not very bright. Some of them
Shannon
2:21
them need to be spoon
Zain
2:21
spoon-fed the information. They
Shannon
2:22
They can look it up on the internet. That's where constituency office information is. This is basic, you know, political literacy. And picketing Corey's office is a great idea. I
Shannon
2:32
should be a morning, noon, and night activity for everybody, you know? Yeah,
Carter
2:35
Yeah, here it is. Here it is. Here it is. Democracy
Carter
2:38
Yeah. 12 to 1, 20th
Carter
2:41
20th of August, tomorrow, 4
Carter
2:43
4,600 pro-child trills northwest.
Carter
2:47
Zane and I will be there.
Zain
2:50
board. We're committed. What are we protesting, Carter? I've only got signs for
Carter
2:55
for Corey Hogan, so I'm a little bit fucked.
Carter
3:03
Do you have any signs that are against him? No,
Carter
3:06
No, I'm going to pull out my
Shannon
3:07
Corey Hogan sign. Just draw a line through it, like in a circle. Oh,
Carter
3:12
Oh, that's good. Confederation is worth fighting for. That's why we'd be there.
Zain
3:17
Corey is once a
Zain
3:19
a champion of Confederation.
Zain
3:21
now undermining it now undermining it so
Zain
3:24
i think we go with the same signs we go with the same signs and we send him a message we'll
Zain
3:30
we'll send him a message yeah
Zain
3:31
yeah it's good that's
Zain
3:32
that's good i like he may have
Carter
3:33
have indicated to us that he can't be there well
Zain
3:37
let's find out where he is let's go let's let's get the other address okay now
Shannon
3:41
now we've escalated where are you gonna be
Zain
3:44
he's told us exactly where he's gonna be uh house address carter here we go lay it on us oh yeah
Carter
3:52
I don't think he's going to be at home.
Zain
3:55
Okay, well, you find out. I'm just texting him
Carter
3:57
him right now. We'll find out where he's going to be, and then we'll announce that on the radio,
Zain
4:02
is. On the radio.
Zain
4:04
On the radio waves. Carter, you and I are doing a radio program in about two hours. Actually,
Zain
4:11
even a radio program.
Zain
4:12
I forgot that he's not on radio. It's
Carter
4:14
It's a podcast formatted as a radio program, which I will probably, at that point, be awake for.
Carter
4:20
in two hours i feel like phillips i can do it at five in the afternoon or seven o'clock yeah
Zain
4:27
yeah what do you do what do you do what the fuck was that yeah what what what show do you do at five in the morning that's even excessive for me the
Shannon
4:34
fucking current yesterday morning at 5 30 do
Zain
4:37
do you go into studio
Zain
4:38
to do that no
Shannon
4:39
no so um um the the solberg complex solberg industrial complex and i I negotiated with CBC. Did they just throw a warm body?
Zain
4:50
body? The complex just
Shannon
4:53
Yeah, whoever's awake. And it turns out it's the old one. So, you know, it was me who was also old. And Monty, we always have a wonderful time.
Carter
5:05
Monty's ancient. Monty is like, he's
Carter
5:08
he's got to be in his 60s.
Shannon
5:11
Yeah, just like you, Carter. Oh,
Zain
5:14
Should we get into it? Should we get into what has happened because Air Canada flight attendants intensified the national strike? We have a tentative deal this morning. That's, of course, the headline. But they defied a federal back-to-work order leading to service travel disruptions for over 130,000 passengers each day.
Zain
5:31
Mark Carney and his government made that, you know, that back-to-work order. Carter, Shannon, there's a lot of things to discuss, but I want to start at the beginning, which is we don't actually know the terms of this tentative deal just yet. We know a lot of it is surrounding this concept of this political flashpoint of work for no pay, which is, I think, revelatory to a lot of Canadians, which is that airline flight attendants do not get paid until the plane pushes back unless it is, quote unquote, in the air. So even service demonstrations, the time traveling in the airport, any of that stuff, they do do not get paid for, which has intensified the narrative and has gained them a lot of public support.
Zain
6:19
But let me start with the basic questions, because I know at least one of you has extremely strong opinions on this, and I suspect both of you do, which is, Shannon, was
Zain
6:28
was the union right to go on strike?
Shannon
6:33
as a layperson who is not involved in the negotiations, I always take the view that
Shannon
6:38
that uh the labor movement and unions have a right i take the same view as the supreme court of canada which is that you have a right to a process not to an outcome i
Shannon
6:48
i that and so you know in any collective agreement there's going to be a whole bunch of complicated stuff around seniority around uh
Shannon
6:55
uh conditions of work around who pays for what in the uniform and in the safety gear and what
Shannon
7:00
what is the composition of the joint health and safety committee all these things that are super Super boring.
Shannon
7:05
And that would make the public's eyes glaze over as as it has for, you know, in the case of, for example, Canada Post. Every once in a while you get a collective agreement and terms of the negotiation that are really easy to understand. I think showing up to work, but not getting paid and
Shannon
7:22
and being expected to do a whole bunch of things that are
Shannon
7:26
are understood by the public as work and that the public sees as work. Yes.
Shannon
7:31
Right. So when you're this is a highly understood profession. People remember their flight experience for good or for ill. And it is it's not a luxury thing, but it is still something that stands out in people's lives. You know, especially when you take your kids or your elderly relative on an airplane. These are memorable experiences. And so for
Shannon
7:53
for that reason, if this stuck in people's minds, it doesn't really matter if the union is, quote unquote, right to go on strike or not. eventually what will happen is because if the union's wrong they're going to have to justify that to their members and they're probably not going to get a positive strike vote in the first place right
Shannon
8:12
right like whenever we're looking at this stuff we have to remember that unions are democratic organizations accountable to their members because at base at base they are a product of our right to free association uh which is guaranteed uh in the charter of rights and freedoms and so there's a a lot of things that whenever we have these flare-ups and strikes that i see as just low levels of labor literacy people don't understand how the process works they don't understand why things work out the way they do um
Shannon
8:40
um and uh these are always good learning moments for people
Zain
8:45
you're the one i'm alluding to that has strong opinions i
Zain
8:49
should the union have been able to should they have gone on strike they
Carter
8:55
they absolutely should be able to go on strike and they should have uh the right to do to go on strike using a strike though is one of those tools that um under you know it really under undermines your your overall ability to win over the general population in this case i must say qp did a great job of making sure that people understood what the issues were and managing that uh that
Carter
9:19
that that public relations side people People definitely felt like they were on the side of the airline attendants and flight attendants. They felt like they were being
Carter
9:32
being hard done by, and so the strike was perceived by the population fairly positively. Had it continued on, I don't think that it would have been as positive. At some point, people expect you to reach a deal, and both sides become seen as unreasonable. reasonable i don't dispute anybody's right to strike i think anybody should be allowed to strike but i also don't think that just because you're allowed to strike the government can't step in and uh end that strike uh prematurely so
Carter
10:05
qb themselves have uh credited the government mediator with with with helping them reach this deal so you
Carter
10:12
you know there's something to be said for being ordered back to work by the government no
Shannon
10:16
no there is not that is patently folks what there is something to be said for wrong is mediation uh and using the tools in the toolbox binding arbitration and allowing and well no binding arbitration is not mediation i'm a
Carter
10:30
a big pro both of them binding
Carter
10:32
binding arbitration was the was the was the threat that was put on the table that enabled them to reach the deal it was fantastic this is the way it's supposed to work you think everybody wins in this situation you don't
Shannon
10:44
don't have to go on extraordinarily ill-informed Oh,
Shannon
11:08
the preferred uh state why why is
Shannon
11:20
because i'll tell you employers we
Shannon
11:22
we got to it's good for we got to a
Carter
11:23
a deal faster for
Carter
11:26
we got to a deal faster for canadians that's the outcome that people actually want they
Carter
11:31
they want to be able to hop on air canada when i need to fly i want to be able to hop onto the airline yes
Shannon
11:37
yes of course i and quite frankly flight attendants also want that to be happening because they're making far more money when they're actually working than they are on strike pay. They
Carter
11:46
They should be grateful
Shannon
11:46
grateful for the process that
Carter
11:48
government put in place. That
Shannon
11:49
That is horseshit. None of us should be grateful for our essential charter rights, actually.
Shannon
11:55
asking a group of women, Carter, to go around begging for crumbs out of the labor relations system is also a horseshit argument, and I don't think you can actually stand behind
Carter
12:05
I don't think that that's... First of all, we're not making this about gender. There's many genders represented in the Airline Association and CUPE, And what we're making this about is whether or not the government of Canada had the right and responsibility to step in to ensure that essentially our national airline continued to function. And I say that they did. And I say that not only did they have that, they have proven that it has worked because out of the mediation came a deal that everybody can stand behind. And you're implying, I
Carter
12:35
I said mediation, I said out of the mediation, but all of it was part
Shannon
12:39
part of it. branding arbitration carter absolutely they
Carter
12:44
an end date on the negotiation the most important thing is time in any negotiation they put an end date on that time and oh you've got extra coffee oh
Carter
12:54
oh yeah oh she needs she
Zain
12:55
she needs it carter are you awake are
Zain
12:57
you awake now well
Carter
12:57
well i'm i'm upset now i got called a misogynist seconds ago yeah i will not be putting up with that bring
Carter
13:05
I will not be putting up with that.
Shannon
13:08
The question here is how the government of Canada behaved itself. And I would say that it behaved itself in a way that is naive to the reality of labor relations. And they torched
Shannon
13:19
number of important relationships
Shannon
13:21
relationships while doing it. They stepped in too early. The fact of the matter is that they were probably 48 hours off of a negotiated settlement because of the reality of public opinion and a number of other drivers.
Carter
13:37
You're making up your own reality. The reality is they stepped in, got a mediated deal. Now everybody goes back to work. Everybody's happy. Look,
Shannon
13:46
when they put out that order to binding arbitration, it
Shannon
13:50
it was earlier than it should have been. And it did not meet a number of legal tests to
Shannon
13:56
to meet Section 107. And what that means is that that is there so that government can act as a backstop, just as we have in provincial labor legislation around essential services and determining what is an essential service. It is the government acting as a backstop to the negotiating process, not as the front footed strategy. And that's what Carney did that was wrong. He sort of took the view that, oh, if I'm going to do this in 48 hours, then I might as well do it now. Well, actually, it does matter. It matters legally. And clearly, it also mattered in terms of public opinion. But what he did was he took a situation where he could have stood
Shannon
14:39
stood back for 48 hours and kept his friends in the labor movement. And what he did instead was underlined all of the reasons why labor is suspicious of him in the first place and why progressive voters felt like they lent him
Shannon
14:55
their vote in April. But it is by no means a done deal and left a massive lane
Shannon
15:02
lane for both the NDP, which, you know, they're not really structurally able to take it up right now. But you saw what happened. The Conservatives sure shit did.
Carter
15:10
Yeah, well, they can try. They
Carter
15:12
They can try. So
Carter
15:13
So the legal is problematic, the moral is problematic,
Carter
15:16
problematic, and the public relations are
Carter
15:19
the end has justified the means the end is successful and we all get to fly on Air Canada again that end is what Canadians will judge this on they will not judge on your process we'll
Shannon
15:30
we'll say what the courts say
Shannon
15:32
there's that too what's
Zain
15:35
what's the Carney government lost in terms of political capital here because there isn't a sentiment by many that they have over swung
Carter
15:43
yeah there's a sentiment by many that they've over swung but at the end of the day when you over swing and hit the ball, it's called a home run.
Carter
15:49
So this is one of those situations where it could have gone badly. It could have gone poorly if a deal hadn't been able to be reached and they did reach binding arbitration. But you know what? You swing hard, you hit the ball, that's called a good thing. And this is a good thing for Canadians. Mark Carney and Minister
Carter
16:09
Minister Hadju have put together a program that actually worked. And it worked for flight light attendance too. Let's not pretend that this is some sort of hardship that's coming forward. This is a binding, this is a mediated settlement that the union seemed pretty damn happy about when I was reading about it this morning.
Shannon
16:25
That view misunderstands the role of the labor movement and in particular, specific
Shannon
16:33
private sector trade unions in what is happening in the Canadian economy right now. Specifically, what they just did was torch a relationship and expectations of action for the private sector autoworkers, the steel workers, folks involved in aluminum, other industrial sectors that the government needs right now in order to respond to tariffs. And when we see unions as sort of ancillary or auxiliary to industrial relations, you're going to end up with labor relations that are much more fraught than they need to be. You know what? Politically, this government used these folks to get elected and made certain promises to them that this week's actions have actually torched. That is a problem.
Carter
17:23
problem. No one in those movements wants strikes. What they want is deals. They want deals that benefit workers.
Shannon
17:28
workers. They want fair deals.
Carter
17:30
And that's what this process has delivered. You're making this into something that is imaginary. And I'm looking at something that is real, something that actually worked. And people don't want to go on strike. You know, the average worker takes years to recoup the salaries that they lose on a long strike. You don't want to go on strike. What they want is a fair deal when teachers go on strike this this fall if they do it won't be because they want to go on strike it'll be because they want a fair fucking deal and they should get a fair deal
Shannon
18:02
structurally carter you only get a fair deal when you have a guaranteed right to a process and part of that process is the right to withdraw labor which traces back to the right to free association the courts have ruled this way why but you're again you do not have the right to The right to join a union and to freely associate and to freely bargain is abrogated. I'm not arguing that. Well, yes, you are, because you're saying that the government should step in and end that right to withdraw. And then you are offside the courts, you're offside common sense, you're offside industrial labor relations policy. And it turns out you're also an offside public opinion when you make that argument in the year of our Lord of August 2025, because that's the reality. The arguments you're putting forward there are old timey arguments. They're not. Yes, they are. They are about giving everybody what
Shannon
18:52
everybody what they want. The way you know that, Carter, is what the conservatives just did, which
Shannon
18:57
which is the conservatives of all fucking people in this universe put out a strong statement in favor of free and fair collective bargaining. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it. All
Shannon
19:08
All they're trying to do is an emerging anti-elites consensus, and that is where the political ball is moving. All
Carter
19:14
All they're trying to do is to ensure that the NDP doesn't find its feet again and the blue-orange switch continues. That's it. That's all they're trying to do. They're just trying to make sure that the NDP has spent political force from the past, in the year of our Lord, August 2025, has spent fucking political force that doesn't exist, doesn't have any impact. people want fucking deals people want everybody to be to move forward that's what happened you you're throwing this up like something didn't happen tell you what if it blown up in his face we'd be having a totally different conversation it didn't blow up in his face it fucking worked for all sides boom and the fucking conversation done right there i want to
Zain
19:58
to pick up on two
Carter
20:00
Seven o'clock in the fucking morning. We're talking about labor relations.
Zain
20:08
think he's going to fall back to sleep soon. I think he's expended all his energy for the day now.
Zain
20:13
Shannon, can I pick up on one part of Carter's argument that maybe politically in this moment might be compelling, which is this concept of Canadians wanting deals. Do you think this recent moment with America and the U.S. tariffs and Carney's lack of deals on that front has kind changed the tune. He hasn't really shown us any deals in any other way. And maybe this is a, using a West Wing reference, you kind of squint and you tilt your head and maybe this looks like a deal of some sort. That Carney the dealmaker, Carney the guy who gets shit done, Carney the guy who expedites things, got something done here. Domestically, sure. With a union, sure. But it's deal any part of what carter's suggesting here and then my exposition on it not to say i agree with it but to maybe drive his point home but it's right resonate with you no i'm talking politically i'm not talking about what you think is morally right or wrong carter no
Carter
21:09
no i'm saying it is politically right go
Carter
21:12
go ahead go ahead shannon my apologies i'd like you to go no
Shannon
21:15
no it's okay it's okay um
Carter
21:16
please go ahead please go ahead uh
Shannon
21:19
i i think there's two carnings right and there There was sort of a minority position that people still were a little bit hesitant on, which is, and David Collado had some polling on this, right? Like, is he a guy that understands, you know, problems for people like me? And that was his least well-performing metric. And
Shannon
21:38
And then there's Carney the dealmaker, Carney the, you know, the export onto the international stage to properly represent us, Carney the guy who's going to keep the economy moving. And
Shannon
21:46
And that was sort of the majority sort of view of him.
Shannon
21:50
And the challenge for the PMO is going to be to manage down those negatives of, you know, he's kind of a rich guy, a dealmaker, someone who doesn't really understand, you know, my problems. And the guy that, you know, actually I do want representing me at the NATO summit, right?
Shannon
22:08
Or, you know, in the Oval Office, those kinds of places. And so what
Shannon
22:14
what he's done is he's gone back to some of those negatives and put them in the window for people.
Shannon
22:20
And that is distinct of his positive attributes that are still definitely there. And I don't think, you know, having a deal, not a deal. I've said this from the beginning on. We're much better off without a deal and let Kuzma kind of roll itself out, getting closer and closer to the midterms and letting
Shannon
22:39
letting the Trump White House kind of touch the stove on tariffs with other countries. We're better off to kind of, you know, lurk under the surface. So I don't think that Canadians blame
Shannon
22:51
for, you know, the sort of deal or no deal piece of it. And I don't think that feeds into into his negatives. This Air Canada thing, though, absolutely does feed into his negatives.
Carter
23:03
It fed into the negatives for the 15 minutes that people were like, well, this may be government overreach. Now we've got a deal. Now
Carter
23:10
Now there's a solution. Everybody's happy. It's going to be it's going to be seen as a real positive. You take a risk, you get a reward. This is the reward. the reward is coming and
Carter
23:19
and so i'm i first of all reward super hard to say at seven o'clock in the fucking morning who knew i didn't know reward
Zain
23:30
we have a problem
Carter
23:33
that's all i have to say talk
Zain
23:35
let's talk about the union let's talk about the union okay
Carter
23:37
because i'm doing great in this conversation no
Zain
23:40
way this is a ton
Carter
23:40
ton of fun for me let's
Zain
23:42
let's talk Let's talk about the union. Yeah, let's do that, Zane.
Zain
23:46
I think if this deal was not struck this morning or in the approximation of this morning, Shannon, that Mark Carney was on the verge of giving the union a further shot in the arm. It's not land, they're defiance to the back to work order. Hancock saying that he's not, you know, stopping, that he'll happily, if needed, go to jail, etc. I think that only helped the union side. Am I wrong?
Shannon
24:12
No, I don't think you're wrong. And in this particular case, I mean, there are lots of instances where, you know, that could zig instead of zag when you defy back
Zain
24:20
back-to-work order. And I want to talk about that in
Zain
24:23
works with the union. So
Shannon
24:23
So it's so fucking rare that a union defies a back to work order. Extremely rare because the fines are steep. The penalties are severe. And, you know, it is an untenable situation. It's designed that way in the balance of labor relations and has been since William
Shannon
24:41
William Lyon Mackenzie King had to come to Lethbridge in 1906 to and to mediate out coal miner strikes that kept being wildcatted. And the employers wanted some way, and
Shannon
24:52
and they had to settle for negotiation process to keep people coming to work. That is where this process in Canadian law stretches back to the Industrial Disputes Resolution Act of 1907. And so, you know, of
Shannon
25:07
of course, of course, defying a back to work order is a huge fucking deal in the labor movement. In this case, it helped the union show the public that the government was on the side of people who wanted you to work for free. This was an easy concept to understand. Over time, that may have changed. But the whole point here is that when the government gets out of the way and bargaining just moves along, the situation does become untenable for both sides and the teeter-totter evens out and they come to an agreement.
Shannon
25:45
And so that's what happened here. The union had to take this chance. The good news is they had the rest of the labor movement behind them in terms of the financial resources to be able to do this and the legal resources and all the rest of it. That's why you have what's called labor centrals. Right. The Canadian Labor Congress and others backing them, because
Shannon
26:04
because what this means for the rest of the federally regulated sectors and folks going into bargaining is that if government is willing to is trigger happy and is going to step in too early, you're going to get a shittier deal for everyone. And that's why they did it.
Carter
26:20
Except they got a deal that they liked. Except, you know, I mean, again, I just deal with reality. Well, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see
Zain
26:25
see if the members ratified, Carter. Like, I don't want to get so happy on that on that front. I am
Carter
26:29
quite certain the members are going to ratify it.
Zain
26:31
it. I agree. I suspect that
Zain
26:32
that there's a strong case. I
Carter
26:33
I bet you $1.50.
Carter
26:35
Carter, why did this
Zain
26:36
work for CUPE in this acute moment and has not worked for so many other unions? Let's throw out Cup W and the postal workers as an example. What was unique about the moment, their strategy, their communications, perhaps even their opponent, that made this work for them? I want to spend a few minutes together talking about this. Well,
Carter
26:57
Well, I think that this deal, and I'll just compare it to the postal union, because the postal union is in, I think that it's about accepting the same reality, right? I think that Air Canada accepted the same reality that the flight attendants accepted. And they were already negotiating on things like getting paid for their full working time, not for, you know, getting paid just for time in the air. There was already some big concessions on the table from the airline recognizing that they were in some sort of joint reality that they could both see that there was going to be an endgame at. I think that with the postal workers, there is not a joint understanding of what the future of Canada Post looks like. I think the future of Canada Post looks much different in 10 years than it does 10 years ago. go. I think that my reliance on my mail delivery has dramatically dropped over the course of the last 20 years, right? And I used to get all my checks in the mail. That was fun. I liked getting checks in the mail. Getting checks in the mail was one of the great things that you could do in life. Now just money shows up. And
Carter
28:08
And that's fine. I like money showing up too. But, you know, The postal service has changed. It's becoming more of a package delivery service, 24-7 competing with Amazon type of service, Purolator style as opposed to
Zain
28:25
to Canada Post style.
Zain
28:26
Do you think Canadians kind of captured that nuance during that postal worker debate and were like, actually, I can't automatically just
Zain
28:32
to... I don't think so at all. Okay, interesting.
Carter
28:33
So that's not it. So Canadians don't understand the difference. I don't think the postal workers understand the difference. I think there's an unshared reality with the Postal Service, and I think that that's going to create much harder negotiations, much longer period of time, and ultimately, I think, will result in a strike and Christmas time this year. The fact that they're not striking until Christmastime tells me an awful lot about how they wish to achieve a deal. Maximum pressure, which is fine, but also maximum consequence. Maximum consequence meaning that they will probably be ordered back to work. Whereas if they struck right now, I don't think that they're going to be ordered back to work in nearly the same amount of time.
Carter
29:16
But, you know, we'll wait and see. But I do think that the difference was Air Canada had a very shared reality with CUPE. And CUPE and Air Canada were going to reach a deal, and that deal was facilitated faster by the government stepping in.
Zain
29:32
Do you want to, Shannon, add anything or take anything away in terms of why CUPE in this case was so successful? Of course, we're pending the deal and its ratification, but at least winning hearts and minds why it was so successful.
Shannon
29:46
Well, one of the big reasons is that Canada Post is a crown and Air Canada is a private corporation. It's only like super old people like us that might remember that our Canada was once a crown. But so when people see it as sort of a for profit entity, you know, they see, OK, well, you have the money to be able to pay people for their time.
Shannon
30:04
And it's a much easier public relations exercise than, you know, Canada Post is a crown corporation and it, you know, might own associated entities like PeerLater, for example. It owns 90 percent of Pure Later. But it's a much more difficult, thorny kind of negotiating entity. Right. So right there in terms of the public perception. Number two, almost every Canadian has an experience with one of the two major airlines of like delays or reasons, you know, ways that they've pissed them off. Right. Right. And so it's easy to kind of get public sympathy vis-a-vis the airline. Whereas, you know, I can't really think of outside of snowstorms and other things why my mail didn't show up. Right. It's a reliable letter.
Shannon
30:51
It's a reliable public service in that way. It's not something that that, you know, like I have to go through a 1-800 line and like, you know, wait for four hours on the phone to talk to a person to find my luggage. it.
Shannon
31:06
And so it's much harder to garner public sympathy.
Shannon
31:12
And number three, the government has for years now taken the same view of things that Carter just articulated, which is that this is sort of a phase, a service that has to be somehow phased out and the public kind of sees it that way.
Shannon
31:27
Right. And so that's the negotiating position at the table as well, which is why you're seeing such frequent labor disruptions because employer is stuck within a bit of a, it's not necessarily so much a bargaining mandate, but a bargaining position that essentially means that they have to be pretty intransigent at the table, right?
Shannon
31:47
right? And it probably will take, you
Shannon
31:50
you know, government resources, government mandate for the crown in
Shannon
31:53
in order to get out of that really sticky position, which is why it seems like every two minutes we're in this conversation about about striking postal workers right
Shannon
32:04
um so they're kind of managing that crown into some sort of decline and that's the problem here right they're going to have to decide is this an essential service how are we modernizing it and how are we doing so in a way that that guarantees uh you know sort of labor peace you also have two different types of unions right again back to the point about, you know, sort of democratic control of unions. The QP Air Canada component has a large presence in Quebec, a large presence out of Pearson, obviously, in Ontario. And they have a different just sort of ethic and vibe than CUPW, which has always been a much more vigilant, militant type of union. So you're just going to have a different bargaining mandate Coming up from the workers of what's going on at the table. And I think the final point is just like the Air Canada component blew
Shannon
32:58
blew it out of the park in terms of their public relations. They had Point Blank do it. I just saw, you know, this is public information because Point Blank was talking about it on LinkedIn. uh
Shannon
33:09
uh linkedin they did a hell of a campaign um
Shannon
33:11
um and they had good you know raw material to work with it's harder to you know be like well seniority and these other kinds of of issues which is what's at uh what's at stake in so many other labor disputes what
Zain
33:25
what what are the lessons shannon to take away if you're like another labor union if you're a even even if you're like a a group going up against an employer or government or trying to win hearts and minds like i think I think there's some things that you could take that may not necessarily apply, like defying a back-to-work order, I think, to your earlier point. Pretty rare that the public agrees with you on that, but they clearly read the moment correctly in terms of that particular piece acutely. But what lessons would you take? And this is to both of you. I'll start with Shannon. If you're other labor unions, other progressive groups, other groups trying to win hearts and minds from what CUPE just did.
Shannon
34:04
professionalize your comms and have it out there in advance uh to set the terms right because that's what uh they moved that campaign last week um
Shannon
34:14
um because i had heard about it you know two weeks ago from some of my friends in qp of kind of you know where things were moving to and i actually heard about the the unpaid work thing i actually maybe i should have had some idea but i did not actually realize that it wasn't until you know the doors closed that you know the clock starts kind of thing um
Carter
34:32
um and uh so
Shannon
34:34
so they they had those those products moving and they moved them in a really sophisticated and well-resourced way they moved them across platforms i saw ads across
Shannon
34:43
across all kinds of platforms on you know unpaid work won't fly they had a really nice tagline so
Shannon
34:48
so you know it comes down to being professionalized uh around the comms they didn't um do it around you know labor leader personalities you only saw uh keeping national president in the last couple days before that it was letting the the kind of flight attendant story the
Shannon
35:04
members uh you know wasn't like you know some kind of like oh here's a you know like a a union executive explaining the story to me it was uh they used other uh ways to do that they used like sort of a almost
Shannon
35:17
almost a fake podcast format uh to kind of push some of their cons if you go look at what they they did.
Shannon
35:23
And they also made sure that all of those materials were in hand at
Shannon
35:29
at the places that were easy for traditional media and others to go and look at, right? Pearson, PET Airport in Montreal, YYC, etc.
Zain
35:41
Carter, what lessons to be learned?
Carter
35:43
I totally agree with Shannon. I mean, it was a professional communications plan that was implemented in advance so that people understood exactly uh the terms on on the union's you know on the union's side um that made it a much more professional dispute it made it harder for air canada to walk away from it it made it harder for the government to ignore it uh that is one of the consequences though of of of doing a really good communication structure is you're going to have uh more
Carter
36:15
more attention on you and there There was certainly lots of attention put on to QP as this unfolded. I think that they did a great job of ramping up the pressure and making sure that everybody understood what was at stake. I think doing
Carter
36:34
doing the communications early, it's something that we talk about all the time, setting the table. That is the number one push for any organization, either side, right? If you want to be taken seriously, you've got to do your communications in advance. You've got to do your homework. If Air Canada wanted to do this better, they would have been talking about their existing offers and taking the free work, the unpaid labor right off the table, right off the bat. And they just didn't. They were caught completely flat-footed. I
Shannon
37:07
just want to add one thing. Which is, QP was given a gift of an employer that was using old timey tactics to the point that I made earlier. They were super aggressive. They were super dickish. And, you know, at one point I looked at it and went like, who
Shannon
37:26
who is running these comms? And, you know, like somebody needs to save them from themselves. They were like using a super 90s anti-union kind of message track. And that does not fly in 2025. People are sick of that shit. They are sick of, you know, like people making a whole bunch of money while I'm going to bust my ass for nothing. Right. That is the vibe of 2025. And if you don't understand that as a corporate communicator, you are going to get your ass kicked, which is what just happened here in Canada. Oh,
Zain
37:57
I agree completely. I mean, as a flabby quasi-monopoly, they didn't have their shit together from a comms perspective, but I think they also just had a lack
Zain
38:07
lack of understanding of reading the room, which I want to kind of lean into as we talk about it in our over-under and our lightning round, Stephen Carter. because my first question is, does this dispute teach you anything or instruct you about anything in regards to Canadians' perspectives on class and class warfare, or how they view class? We kind of ignore talking about that as a daily concept in this country. Certain political parties do it. But I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by my fellow Canadians being so on side with the flight attendants. And I think both of you made excellent points around why the experiences that they've had, the types of people that flight attendants are, etc.
Zain
38:52
Regardless of all that, or maybe including all of that, I was excited to see that that public opinion support held. Does this reveal anything to you, Carter, about class in Canada?
Carter
39:03
I wish it did. I wish to a degree that what Shannon said, that we care about our common person, you know, the people that we work with and those, I still think that we are more a selfish society than we are an empathetic society. So I would have liked to, I mean, I'd like to believe that the empathy that was exhibited over the course of the last week towards flight attendants was something that would last. I have a sense that as soon as someone gets onto an airplane and doesn't getting a cup of coffee that is uh that is tolerable um that empathy will evaporate and disappear uh because i i suspect that that that empathy exists more in in uh in in the abstract that it does in the actual reality of our of our class warfare um you
Carter
39:54
you know i mean there is no class more there's no more classist an organization really than airplanes uh they they they really really put it right up front, if you will, that there's a first class and then there's everybody fucking else.
Zain
40:09
That's a nice way of bringing it back home. I appreciate that. Shannon, does this moment teach you or tell you anything about Canadians' appetite for class-based politics, for how they see the working class, anything in this broader sort of vein? I'm not asking a specific question on purpose, but I want to kind of give you some runway, pun intended, to go where you need to. It's very
Carter
40:30
very nicely done. Yeah,
Zain
40:31
Yeah, no, I'm very good at this. Yeah,
Shannon
40:33
Yeah, I'm very good at this. Flair Airlines should hire you as a cons person.
Zain
40:38
They have. I don't know if you know this. We are a biggest line item for them. Yeah.
Zain
40:43
We've actually taken over flight. We actually, they had flight attendants. I don't know if you know this. Now they have us.
Shannon
40:49
I think the danger for the left is, again, to my accusation of people being old timey, is to go back to the 70s and think about this in terms of, you know, old-timey class politics or class solidarity. This is always the danger for the left as we're living in the fucking past. There is not to say that there aren't progressive arguments, solutions, and campaigns and, you know, that can meet this moment for people, but it's not either anchored in someone else's experience. Like, let's say, I don't know, the mayor of fucking New York You know, what has that got to do with the politics in Brantford, Ontario, right, or in Calgary, Alberta or wherever else? The danger for the left is we look at, oh, there was success over here or there was success in the past, right? So, you know, they're making mistakes of geography and, well, time and space, basically, is what they're doing. So that should not be the lesson that we take here. But the lesson that we should take is that the economy is a lived experience, and
Shannon
41:54
and it is a lived experience that is worsening for individuals who may not see themselves as part of a whole, but
Shannon
42:02
but they do see their pissed-off-edness as part of a broader social conversation in whatever realms of social media that they participate in. and
Shannon
42:15
and they consume their mainstream media information, which is really, really important and we should not overlook, right? That's how we got the elbows up, you know, boomers. That's how we got like Carney raising his profile in like one quarter in early 2025 was via mainstream media. So we need to understand how people are receiving information from
Shannon
42:36
from mainstream media into
Shannon
42:38
into their corners of the internet and how they're consuming that information. And that is a shared experience, right,
Shannon
42:46
right, that doesn't necessarily fit neatly into the old categories of race or class or other identities. And that's the problem for the left as they see people consuming this information in really old-time kind of frame, right, old boxes. They don't. um
Shannon
43:05
um they're seeing it through an individualized frame generally
Shannon
43:09
generally uh and it's it's very like my experience of the economy the fact is that is a shared experience of shittiness for the like a good majority of people even middle-income people right and so what this did was it punched through to a shared experience like what do you mean i have to show up to work and i don't get paid for the first fucking 90 minutes that I'm there or more, right?
Shannon
43:31
right? That is bullshit.
Shannon
43:33
And, oh, that reminds me of the time that, you know, our boss tried to do X, Y, or Z that was kind of the same vibe, right?
Shannon
43:39
right? But it's through the me. And that is the piece that the left has got to learn and leave aside its old framing around class.
Zain
43:52
Follow-up question very quickly to both of you. Do Canadians have, in your mind, a
Zain
43:56
a pretty good antenna for fairness? And do you feel like that was maybe at the heart of this, like both in the comms with the union, but also just overall? Like Canadians don't look at this as, oh, I'm on side of the union this time and I'm not this time. It's just like, oh, just like quickly analyzing this in three seconds. Like that doesn't seem fair. Moving on, making a judgment. What do you think, Carter?
Carter
44:14
That's one of the poles of decision of values that I think really defines Canadians, their Their sense of fairness versus, you know, the United States where selfishness, I think, takes a little bit different view on fairness. What is fair for me is seen as more fair in the United States, whereas there is a definite fairness vibe in Canada. It's one of the polls that I try to work on as much as possible in politics. politics um so i i think that fairness versus unfair absolutely canadians have a strong sense of it and a simple story of i don't get paid for 90 minutes of my work is a simple is a as an easy story uh to tell now air canada you know is in a tougher spot because they were they would have been in a spot where they were trying to communicate but we're we're trying to rectify that we've already promised that but um and and when you watch their press conference when they're trying to actually articulate that that was pretty horrible right like they their communication structures were um very
Carter
45:24
very very bad so yeah i mean fairness i think is is a great pull um and i think the canadians do see themselves as fair but they see themselves as fair within their class structure
Carter
45:34
To the earlier point.
Shannon
45:36
The danger for unions and union comms that I've noticed over the years is that they will, because fairness does pull well to Carter's point. And when you do, you know, focus groups, when you do more qualitative research, that'll pop out to you. And so then they'll, you know, put out billboards or take out ads that are like, this is not fair. It sounds like fucking whining. Right. And so you have to find a way that is more compelling for labor communicators, I think. And what this piece showed me is that they're figuring it out.
Shannon
46:07
Right. And when you move above kind of the sort of drumbeat of of labor comms and into a really well resourced campaign, you get what just happened with Air Canada component, which is popping above just fairness, which is a kind of a milquetoast argument and into like somebody is getting something that I'm not getting. and what is going on here, like raising the stakes a bit.
Zain
46:33
Bold or risky for the Conservatives to take the position they did amidst this discussion, this conversation in the Canadian zeitgeist to back bargaining, to back the legal process, to, of course, oppose what the back-to-work legislation was by this government? Carter, you've
Zain
46:52
you've explained why they've done it. Explain to me if it's bold or risky from a political calculus perspective.
Carter
46:59
I think it's neither bold nor risky. I think that they did it because they saw the opportunity to keep their foot on the throat of the NDP. The NDP was unable to take advantage of this situation. The conservatives jumped in. There was no conversation that included the NDP as an entity in this overarching conversation. So it was neither bold nor risky. was something that was calculated and and uh efficient it made sense for them to do so so they they opposed the government as is their want as the opposition party shannon
Shannon
47:37
can't decide uh because essentially what they've decided to do is like basically lie to people um
Shannon
47:45
say yeah yeah we're on the side of their workers like you bet your ass they probably would have you know legislated back to work they love legislating back to work it was their favorite thing to do and the Harper government. They did it within the first six months in 2011.
Shannon
47:56
In the summer of, actually it was in the first month, I think.
Shannon
48:00
By June, July, they were legislating back. I think it was Cup W at the time when
Shannon
48:06
when they won their majority. Look, they've done a turn towards taking more labor-friendly positions. They've ditched all of their old super anti-union, like the union audit, legislation commitment, all of those kinds of stuff. They've pulled all that from platform. It was, in fact, it was one of their platform points. We promise not to do that again.
Shannon
48:27
It was one of the things they committed to in the last election.
Shannon
48:31
And so I think it's really interesting that, like, and I think it goes beyond trying to mow the NDP's lawn. Like, that's actually stupid for them to do. They should be trying to fluff up the NDP's pillows at this point, because it's one of the reasons why they didn't get as many
Shannon
48:48
many seats as they wanted to was the collapse of the NDP. But I
Shannon
48:53
I also, I think what they're doing is cutting into liberal support as well, in particular in southwestern Ontario. And one of the reasons why that's smart is
Shannon
49:06
is because we're going into really rough patches in
Shannon
49:10
terms of layoffs and plant closures and other big, big challenges for private sector unionized workers
Shannon
49:17
workers in Ontario, in auto and steel and aluminum.
Shannon
49:21
And not just in southwest Ontario, but there for sure. And
Shannon
49:26
And so this is them picking up support and shoring up some of the support that they won, like the Conservatives hold Windsor now extraordinarily.
Shannon
49:37
that's what they're doing. I can't decide what it is, because they're most certainly lying there, you know, ever loving faces off of what they would do once they're in power.
Zain
49:49
at this. We started off with Carter not awake, and then we had a debate in between in which I think that might be a strategist record. I didn't speak for maybe 20 minutes. And I made up for it on the back end with my extremely long questions. We are going to leave it there. That's a wrap on episode 1881 of The Strategist. My name is Zane Velgey. With me, as always, Shannon Phillips, Stephen Carter. We shall see you next time.