In 2025, Air Canada flight attendants said “enough is enough” to unpaid work that had become increasingly a part of their jobs. Shanyn Elliott is a flight attendant and the Chair of the Mobilization Committee for the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Air Canada Component. She organized workers in a strike that disrupted their employer operations, in defiance of the Carney government’s ‘Section 107’ back to work order.
In the end, flight attendants forced their employers back to the bargaining table to end unpaid work and negotiate for fair wages.
The workers’ right to negotiate with bosses is a fundamental democratic right — one that some governments and corporate bosses refuse to realize. It takes organizing for collective action to win these rights back for the working class.
This interview was recorded at the Broadbent Institute’s ‘2026 Progress Summit: Defending Democracy Across Borders,’ held March 4-6 in Ottawa.
