This is Jacobin Radio. I'm Susie Wiseman.

Labor sociologist Barry Eidlin is back with us today to discuss the recent Air Canada strike, which is just settled.

The airline workers, organized in the Canadian Union

of Public Employees went on strike on Saturday, August 16, and is usually the case in Canada.

The government ordered the strikers back to work 12 hours later. The flight attendants

defied the government order to go back to work, and after all-night negotiating session reached a settlement to the strike by August 19th.

It's a great example of what labor can do when it doesn't pack down.

Barry's here to explain the strike, the government response, its outcome and what it portends.

And we'll also talk about Canadian labor law

and how it differs from labor law in the United States and disputes

when our program returns in just a moment.

This is Jacobin Radio.

I'm Susie Wiseman.

We're talking about the recent Air Canada flight attendant strike.

That strike began with 10,000 flight attendants walking off the job after months of failed negotiations.

And as expected, the government quickly issued a back-to-work order under Section 107 of the Canada Labor Code.

That's a provision that ostensibly regulates strikes but is instead used to short-circuit them.

But this time, something unusual happened.

The workers refused to comply.

Defying the order, they held firm, chanting, forced to fly,

we won't comply. And after an all-night bargaining session, they secured, I guess,

an tentative agreement showing what labor can do when it doesn't back down. So to help us

...