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Zain: is Strategist episode 1881. My name is Zane Velgey. With me as always, Shannon Phillips and Stephen Carter.
Zain: 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.
SPEAKER_05: he's now just waking up.
Zain: Hello, good morning. He's just going to spend the
Shannon: Hello, 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: intro banter complaining
Zain: Just have a cup of
Zain: Shannon, rule number one is we don't acknowledge the intro banter. We don't acknowledge that it exists.
Zain: Okay, the fact is
Shannon: the fact
Shannon: fact is that this is the time when adults are awake doing work. Yeah, Carter.
Zain: Yeah, Carter. Some
Zain: of them even work throughout the night to reach a deal.
Shannon: Ooh,
SPEAKER_05: Ooh,
Shannon: good segue. That
Zain: That was nice. I'm just going to do the meta
Shannon: nice.
Shannon: I'm just going to do the meta commentary today. That's what I'm doing. Yeah, yeah.
Zain: doing. Yeah, yeah. Production notes. Yeah,
Shannon: yeah. Production notes. Yeah, no
Zain: Yeah, no problem. problem carter i want to make sure that you're going to be uh aware and cogent for this episode you've probably been sleeping at your desk for weeks now hoping that we record i
Carter: was for the last four days hoping that their canada would reach a deal uh
Carter: uh so that's
Carter: 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: yeah
Carter: yeah don't sound so at a time one deal at a time yeah
Zain: yeah don't sound so at a time one deal at a time yeah
Zain: yeah
Carter: yeah uh
Zain: uh
Zain: uh speaking of which i should mention that This episode, Carter, is brought to us by our sponsor, Flair Airlines. Flair Airlines, you have to have flight attendants in order to go on strike. That's actually their new slogan. They've actually just sent us the updated copy. They've
Shannon: Flair
Zain: just sent it over to us. And I wanted to make sure. They said, make it a timely read. I said, oh, I will.
Carter: to make sure.
Carter: Oh, that's good. That's good. Oh, I will.
Zain: That's good. Oh, I will.
Zain: Where's
Carter: Where's Corey? Who's playing Corey, the role of Corey today?
Zain: What upsets me is, do you think this protest in front of Corey's office will still go ahead?
Zain: I hope so. No, I don't think so.
Carter: hope
Shannon: hope so. No, I don't think so. Oh,
Carter: Oh,
Shannon: Oh, come
Carter: come
Shannon: come on. I was planning
Carter: come
Carter: on. I was planning to
Zain: planning to go. I'm going rain or shine, deal or no deal. I was going to go regardless. Let's go. What
Shannon: to go.
Carter: was
Shannon: was
Carter: was going to go regardless. Let's go. What
Carter: What time
Shannon: time is it at? Two o'clock in the afternoon?
Shannon: think it's 12 to one. 12 to one on Wednesday. A fucking reasonable
Carter: think it's 12
Carter: to one on
Carter: A fucking reasonable
Carter: reasonable time.
Carter: Reasonable time. You're
Shannon: Reasonable
Zain: Reasonable
Shannon: Reasonable
Zain: Reasonable time.
Zain: probably going to accuse us of doxing, but I think we should go. I think we all should encourage the listeners to go. What's his fucking
Carter: think we all should encourage the
Carter: to go. What's his fucking address? Let's read it out loud.
Zain: loud.
Zain: Carter, you find the address in the meantime. It's public information.
Shannon: Carter, you find
Carter: find the address
Shannon: It's public information. It's just off Crowchild. Shannon, our lister is not
Zain: Shannon, our lister is not very bright. Some of them need to be spoon-fed the information. They
Shannon: them need to be spoon
Shannon: 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 think it should be a morning, noon, and night activity for everybody, you know?
Carter: can look it
Carter: I think it
Carter: Yeah, here it is. Here it is. Here it is. Democracy at work,
Shannon: Democracy at work,
Shannon: baby.
Carter: Yeah.
Carter: 12 to 1,
Carter: 20th of August, tomorrow. Yeah.
Carter: Yeah. 4,600 pro-child trills northwest. Northwest.
Carter: Zane and I will be there.
Carter: Sandwich board.
Shannon: Sandwich board.
Zain: board. We're committed. What are we protesting, Carter? I've only got signs for
Carter: committed. What
Carter: only got signs for Corey Hogan, so I'm a little...
Carter: I'm a little bit... Fuck.
Carter: Do you have any signs that are against them? No,
Zain: Do you
SPEAKER_04: you have any signs that
Zain: that
Shannon: No, I'm going to pull out
Carter: No, I'm going to pull out
Zain: my
Carter: my Corey Hogan
Shannon: my Corey Hogan sign. Just draw a line through it, like in a circle. Oh,
Carter: draw a line
Carter: that's good. Confederation is worth fighting for. That's why we'd be there.
Shannon: That's why we'd be there.
Zain: there.
Zain: Yeah, that's true.
Zain: Corey is once
Carter: Corey is once
SPEAKER_05: once
Zain: a champion of confederation now
Zain: he's now undermining it now undermining it so
SPEAKER_05: he's now undermining
SPEAKER_05: now undermining it so
Zain: so i
SPEAKER_05: i
Zain: i think we go with the same signs we go with the same signs and we send him a message we'll
SPEAKER_05: we go with the
Carter: send him a message
Zain: we'll send him a message yeah
Carter: we'll send him a message yeah
Zain: yeah it's good that's
Zain: that's good i like he may have
Carter: like he may have indicated to us that he can't be there well
Zain: let's
Zain: find out where he is let's go let's let's get the other address okay now
Carter: get the other address okay now we've escalated
Shannon: now we've escalated where are you gonna be
Carter: where are you gonna be
Zain: he's told us exactly where he's gonna be uh house address carter here we go lay it on us oh yeah
Shannon: he's
Carter: he's
Shannon: he's told us
Carter: us
Carter: oh yeah No,
Carter: I don't think he's going to be at home.
Zain: Okay, well, you find out. I'm just texting him
Carter: I'm just texting him right now. We'll find out where he's going to be, and then we'll announce that on the radio.
Zain: Yeah. Or whatever this is. On the radio.
Carter: Or whatever this is. On
Zain: On the radio waves. Carter, you and I are doing a radio program in about two hours. Actually, that's not even a radio program. That's true. I forgot that he's not on radio. It's
Carter: On the radio waves.
Carter: Actually, that's not even a radio program. That's true. I
Carter: forgot that
Carter: It's a podcast formatted as a radio program, which I will probably, at that point, be awake for in
Zain: which I will probably,
Shannon: probably,
Carter: in two hours. I feel like I can do it at 5 in the afternoon or 7 o'clock in the fucking morning what do you do at 5 in the morning what
Shannon: I feel
Zain: feel like I
Zain: in the fucking morning what do you do at 5 in the morning what show do you do at 5 in the morning that's even excessive for me the
Shannon: me the
Shannon: the
Shannon: fucking current yesterday morning at 5.30 do you go into the studio to do
Zain: 5.30 do you go into the studio to do that no
Shannon: no the Solberg complex Solberg industrial complex and I negotiated with CBC can we just throw a warm body The body?
Zain: no
Zain: negotiated
Zain: can we just throw a warm body The body? The complex just throws whoever's awake? Yeah,
Shannon: just throws whoever's
Shannon: 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, you always have a wonderful time.
Zain: whoever's awake. And
Carter: Monty, you always have a wonderful time.
Carter: Monty's ancient. Monty is like, he's
Shannon: Monty's ancient.
Carter: he's got to be in his 60s.
Shannon: just like you, Carter. Oh,
Carter: Oh, shut
Shannon: shut up.
Zain: 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: 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. 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 not get paid for, which has intensified the narrative and has gained them a lot of public support.
Zain: But let me start with the basic questions, because I know at least one of you has extremely strong opinions on this. I suspect both of you do, which is, Shannon, was
Zain: the union right to go on strike?
Shannon: I am, as
Shannon: as a layperson who is not involved in the negotiations, I always take the view that
Shannon: that 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.
Carter: you have a right
Shannon: And so, you know, in any collective agreement, there's going to be a whole bunch of complicated stuff around seniority, around conditions
Shannon: conditions of work, around who pays for what in the uniform and in the safety gear. And what
Shannon: what is the composition of the Joint Health and Safety Committee? All these things that are super boring.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
Shannon: And that would make the public's eyes glaze over. 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, like showing up to work but not getting paid and
Carter: As
Zain: As it
Carter: it
SPEAKER_00: and
Shannon: and being expected to do a whole bunch of things that are
SPEAKER_00: and
Shannon: are understood by the public as work and that the public sees as work. Yes.
Zain: Yes. Right.
Shannon: 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. Especially when you take your kids or your elderly relative on an airplane. These are memorable experiences. And so for that reason, 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: 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: um and uh these are always good learning moments for people carter
Zain: you're
Zain: you're the one i'm alluding to that has strong opinions i
Carter: i do should
Zain: should
Carter: should
Zain: should
Zain: the union have been able to should they have gone on strike they
Carter: absolutely should be able to go on strike and they should should have the right to go on strike. Using a strike, though, is one of those tools that really undermines your overall ability to win over the general population. In this case, I must say, CUPE did a great job of making sure that people understood what the issues were and managing that public
Carter: public relations side. People definitely felt like they were on the side of the airline attendants and flight attendants. They felt like they were being
Carter: 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. 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 end that strike prematurely. So
Carter: I will
Zain: will
Carter: will add, CUPE themselves have credited the government mediator with helping them reach this deal. So, you
Carter: you know, there is something to be said for being ordered back to work by the government.
Shannon: No, there is not. That is patently false. What there is something to be said for is mediation. and using the tools in the toolbox. Binding arbitration. And allowing, well, no, binding arbitration is not mediation. I know, I'm a
Carter: What there
Carter: there
Carter: is something to be said for is mediation.
Carter: arbitration. And allowing,
Carter: I know, I'm a big pro of both of them.
Carter: Binding arbitration was the threat that was put on the table that enabled them to reach a deal. It was fantastic. This is the way it's supposed to work. Everybody wins in this situation. You don't have to go on strike for two. This is an extraordinarily
Shannon: threat that
Shannon: Everybody wins
Shannon: You don't have to go on strike for two. This is an extraordinarily ill-informed opinion. Oh, my God. And the fact of the matter is that when you let labor relations work itself out, only in very, very small sliver of cases will it become an actually intractable impasse. Generally speaking, if government balances the process between employer and the workers, what will happen is that it will negotiate out itself. self. And that is always, always the preferred state. Why? Why is it? Why? Because
SPEAKER_00: extraordinarily
Carter: extraordinarily ill-informed
Carter: Oh, my God. And the
Carter: state.
Carter: is it? Why?
Carter: Because I'll tell you. It's good for employers. It's good for everyone. We got to a deal faster for Canadians. We got to a deal faster for Canadians. That's the outcome that people actually want. They
Shannon: Because I'll tell you. It's good for employers. It's good for everyone. We got to a
Shannon: deal
Shannon: deal
Shannon: deal faster for Canadians. We
Carter: 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.
Shannon: Yes, of course. 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 should be grateful for the process that the government
Carter: pay. They should be grateful for the process that the government put in place. That
Shannon: That is horseshit. None of us should be grateful for our essential charter rights, actually.
Carter: horseshit. None of us
Carter: for our essential charter
Zain: charter
Zain: actually. And asking a group of
Shannon: asking a group of women, Carter, to go around, you know, like 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: also a
Carter: I don't think that that's, I don't, first of all, we're not making this about gender. there's many genders represented in the airline association in cupi 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 they have proven that it has worked because out of the mediation came a deal that everybody can stand behind and you're you're implying i
Shannon: you're
Zain: you're you're
Shannon: you're implying
Carter: i said mediation i said out of the mediation but all of it they referred it
Shannon: they referred it to branding arbitration carter absolutely they put they put an end
Carter: carter
Carter: carter absolutely they put they put 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: she needs it
Zain: needs it carter are you awake are you awake now well
Carter: well i'm upset now i got called a misogynist seconds ago yeah i will not be putting up with that i will bring it
Shannon: up with that i will bring it i
Carter: i will not be putting up with that bullshit
Carter: bullshit the
Shannon: bullshit the
Shannon: the
Carter: the
Shannon: the question here is is how the government of canada behaved itself and i would say that it uh behaved itself in a way that is naive to the reality of labor relations oh my god they
Carter: the question here is
Carter: oh my god they did a number of important relationships
Shannon: did a number of important relationships
Shannon: relationships while doing it they stepped in too early the fact The fact of the matter is that they were probably 48 hours
Carter: doing
Carter: of the matter is that they were probably 48 hours
Shannon: hours off of a negotiated settlement because of the reality of public opinion and a number of other drivers. You're
Carter: public opinion and a number of other drivers. 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: Look, when they put out that order to binding arbitration, it
Shannon: it was earlier than it should have been. And it did not meet a number of legal tests to
Shannon: to meet Section 107. And what that means is that, like, that is there so that government can act as a backstop, just as we have in provincial labour 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
Carter: a situation where
SPEAKER_00: where
SPEAKER_00: have
Carter: have
SPEAKER_00: have stood
Shannon: 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 Labour is suspicious of him in the first place and why progressive voters felt like they lent him
Shannon: him their
Shannon: their vote in April. But
Shannon: But it is by no means a done deal and left a massive lane
Shannon: 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: shit did.
Carter: Yeah, well, they can try. They
Carter: They can try. So
Carter: So the legal is problematic, the moral is problematic,
Shannon: the legal is problematic, the moral is problematic, and the public relations are problematic. The
Carter: problematic, and the public relations are problematic. 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 say what the courts say.
Shannon: process. We'll say what the courts say.
Shannon: There's that too, right? Carter, you have lots of problems here. What's
Carter: Carter, you have lots
Zain: lots of problems
Carter: problems
Zain: What's the Carney government lost in terms of political capital here? Because there isn't a sentiment by many that they have overswung. Yeah,
Carter: there's a sentiment by many that they've overswung. But at the end of the day, when you overswing and hit the ball, it's called a home run.
Carter: 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: Minister Hadju have put together a program that actually worked. And it worked for flight attendants, too. Let's not pretend that this is some sort of hardship that's coming forward. This is a mediated settlement that the union seemed pretty damn happy about when I was reading about it this morning. That
Shannon: view misunderstands the role of the labour movement and, in particular, specific 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: specific private sector
SPEAKER_00: industrial sectors
SPEAKER_00: order
Carter: order
Carter: is a problem. No one in those movements wants strikes. What they want is deals. They want deals that benefit workers. They want fair deals. 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: workers. They want fair deals.
Shannon: this into something
Carter: that's structurally
Shannon: that's 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
SPEAKER_00: you're again you
SPEAKER_00: you
SPEAKER_00: not arguing that. Well,
SPEAKER_00: because that's the reality.
SPEAKER_00: you're putting forward there are old timey
Carter: timey
SPEAKER_00: not. Yes,
Carter: They are about giving everybody what
Carter: what they
Shannon: they
Carter: they want.
Carter: Giving
Shannon: Giving
Carter: Giving everybody what they want. The way you know
Shannon: Giving everybody what they want. The way you know that, Carter, is what the conservatives just did, which
Carter: what the conservatives
Shannon: 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 they're trying to do is an emergency or emerging anti-elites consensus. And that is where the political ball is moving. All
Carter: All they're trying to do is an emergency or
Carter: 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
Carter: 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 also want to
Zain: also want to
Zain: pick up on two threads here seven
Carter: seven o'clock in the fucking morning we're talking about labor relations jesus
Zain: o'clock in
Carter: jesus christ i
Zain: think he's gonna fall fall back to sleep soon i think he's expended all his energy for
SPEAKER_05: for
Zain: for the
SPEAKER_05: the
Zain: the day now
Zain: shannon
Zain: 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 of changed the tune like he hasn't really shown us any deals in any other way and maybe this is a you know using a west ring reference conference you know you kind of squint and you tilt your head and maybe this looks like a deal of some sort that carney the deal maker carney the guy who gets shit done carney the guy who expedites things got something done here domestically sure with the union sure but it's a 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 You're talking politically. I'm not talking about what you think is morally right or wrong, Carter.
SPEAKER_05: but
Shannon: but it's right
Carter: is
Carter: is
Carter: No, I'm saying it is politically right. Go
Carter: ahead. Go ahead, Shannon. My apologies. I'd like you to go. No, it's OK.
Shannon: go. No, it's OK. It's OK. Please
Carter: It's OK. Please
Carter: Please go ahead. Please go ahead.
Shannon: I think there's two Karnings. Right. And 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?
Shannon: And that was his least well-performing metric.
Shannon: 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: And that was sort of the majority sort of view of him.
Shannon: 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?
Carter: someone who doesn't
SPEAKER_05: doesn't really understand,
Carter: understand,
Shannon: Or, you know, in the Oval Office, those kinds of places. And so
Shannon: what he's done is he's gone back to some of those negatives and put them in the window for people.
Shannon: 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 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: blame him for,
Shannon: 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
Carter: does it?
Carter: No.
Carter: It fed into the negatives for the 15 minutes that people were like, well,
Carter: well, this may be government overreach. Now we've got a deal. Now there's a solution. Everybody's happy. It's going to be seen as a real positive. You take a risk, you get a reward. This
Carter: This is the reward. The reward is coming.
Carter: And so I'm, first of all, reward. Super hard to say at 7 o'clock in the fucking morning. Who knew? I didn't know.
Zain: Reward.
Carter: Reward.
Carter: Reward.
Zain: We have a problem here.
Carter: here.
Carter: Yeah.
Carter: That's all I have to say. Let's
Zain: say.
Carter: Let's
Zain: Let's talk about the union. Let's talk about the union.
Carter: Let's talk about
Zain: Okay,
Carter: Okay, because I'm doing great in this conversation. No, wait, wait. This has been a ton of fun for me. Let's
Zain: No,
Zain: No, wait, wait. This has been a ton
Zain: Let's talk about the union. Yeah, let's do that, Zane.
Carter: Yeah, let's do that, Zane.
Zain: I
Zain: 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: 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-to-work order. And I want to talk about that
Zain: defy back-to-work order. And I want to talk about that in a second. Why this works with the union. So
Shannon: that in a second. Why this works with the union. So
Shannon: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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.
Shannon: 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: Except they did.
Carter: 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 if
Zain: Well, we'll see. We'll see. We'll see if the members ratify it, Carter. Like, I don't want to get so happy on that on that front. I am quite certain
Carter: I am quite certain the members are going to ratify it. I
Zain: going to ratify
Zain: I agree. I suspect that. I bet you a dollar fifty.
Carter: suspect that. I bet you a dollar fifty. A
Carter: buck fifty.
Zain: buck fifty.
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Zain: did this work for CUPE in this acute moment, and it's 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: 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?
Carter: 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 were there was already some big concessions on the table from the 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 end game. 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 that's fine. I like money showing up too. But, you know, Well, 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 Canada Post style. Do
Zain: opposed to Canada Post style. Do
Zain: Do you think Canadians kind of captured that nuance during that postal worker debate and were like, actually, I can't automatically just go to... Okay, interesting. So that's not it. So Canadians
Carter: can't automatically just go to...
Carter: 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,
Carter: 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: 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: 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. Well,
Shannon: 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 Air Canada was once a crown. But so when people see it as sort of a for-profit entity, you know, they see, okay, well, you have the money to be able to pay people for their time. And
Shannon: And it's a much easier public relations exercise than, you know, Canada Post is a crown corporation and it, you
Shannon: you know, might own associated entities like Purolator, for example, it owns 90% of Purolator. 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. 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 public
Carter: It's a reliable public
Shannon: public service in that way. It's not something that I have to go through a 1-800 line and wait for four hours on the phone to talk to a person to find my luggage.
Carter: public
Shannon: And so it's
Shannon: it's much harder to garner public sympathy. And
Shannon: number three,
Shannon: 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: 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: right? And it probably will take, you
Shannon: you know, government resources, government mandate for the crown in
Shannon: 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 striking postal workers, right?
Shannon: 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 guarantees sort of labor peace? You also have two different types of unions. Again, back to the point about 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. 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: it out of the park in terms of their public They had Point Blank do it. I just saw, you know, this is public information because Point Blank was talking about it on LinkedIn.
Shannon: They did a hell of a campaign and
Shannon: 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 issues, which is what's at stake in so many other labor disputes. What
Zain: are the lessons, Shannon, to take away if you're like another labor union, if you're even even if you're like a group going up against an employer or government or trying to win hearts and minds like I think there's some things that you could take that may not necessarily apply, like defying a back to work order. order, I think, to your earlier point. Pretty rare that the public agrees with you on that, but they clearly had them. 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 your other labor unions, other progressive groups, other groups trying to win hearts and minds from what CUPE just did.
Shannon: Professionalize your comms and have it out there in advance to set the terms, right? Because that's what, they moved that campaign last week
Shannon: 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 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.
Shannon: And so they had those products moving And they moved them in a really sophisticated and well-resourced way. They moved them across platforms. I saw ads across all kinds of platforms on, you know, Unpaid Work Won't Fly. They had a really nice tagline. So,
Shannon: So, you know, it comes down to being professionalized around the comms. They didn't do it around, you know, labor leader personalities. You only saw keeping national presence in the last couple of days. Before that, it was letting the kind of flight attendant story, you
SPEAKER_00: it
Zain: it was letting
Zain: you know,
Shannon: you know, it wasn't like, you know, some kind of like, oh, here's a, you know, like a union executive explaining the story to me. They used other ways to do that. They used like sort of a almost
Shannon: a fake podcast format to
Shannon: to kind of push some of their cons if you go look at what they did. And
Shannon: And they also made sure that all of those materials were in hand at
Shannon: 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: Carter, what lessons to be learned? I
Carter: I totally agree with Shannon. I mean, it was a professional communications plan that was implemented in advance so the people understood exactly the terms on the union's side. 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. That is one of the consequences, though, of doing a really good communication structure is you're going to have more
Carter: more attention on you. And there was certainly lots of attention put on to CUPE 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: 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 got to do your communications in advance. You 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.
Carter: I just want to just
Shannon: just want to just 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. uh and uh you know at one point i looked at it and went like uh
Carter: which is QP
Shannon: uh who is running uh these comms and uh 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 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: Oh, 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: of understanding of reading the room, which I want to kind of lean into as we talk about it in our over-under on our lightning round, Stephen Carter, because my first question is, does this dispute teach
Zain: 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 made excellent points around why the experiences that they've had the types of people that flight attendants are etc regardless
Zain: 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 i
Carter: wish it did i i i wish i wish to a degree that what shannon said that we care about uh our our common person you know or you know the the people that we work with and those i i still 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 get a cup of coffee that is tolerable, that empathy will evaporate and disappear. Because I suspect that that empathy exists more in the abstract than it does in the actual reality of our class warfare. You
Carter: know, I mean, there is no more classist organization, really, than airplanes. They really put it right up front, if you will, that there's a first class and then there's everybody fucking else.
Zain: 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: very nicely done. Yeah,
Zain: Yeah, no, I'm very good at this. Yeah,
Carter: Yeah, no, I'm very good at this. Yeah, I'm very
Shannon: Yeah, I'm very good at this. Flair Airlines should hire you as a cons person. They have.
Zain: They have. I don't know if you know this. We are a biggest line item for them.
Shannon: I don't know if you know
Shannon: We've
Zain: 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: I think the danger for the left is, again, to my accusation of people being old-timey, uh is to go back to the 70s and uh think about this in terms of you know old-timey class uh politics or class solidarity uh this is always the danger for the left as we're living in the fucking past i i there is not to say that there aren't progressive arguments solutions uh and uh 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 what 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 The lesson that we should take is that the economy is a lived experience, and it is a lived experience that is worsening for individuals who may not see themselves as part of a whole, but
SPEAKER_05: politics or
Shannon: they do see their pissed-off-edness as part of a broader social conversation in whatever realms of social media that they participate in.
SPEAKER_04: that they participate in.
Shannon: And they consume their mainstream media information, which is really, really important and we should not overlook, right? 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: from mainstream media into
Shannon: into their corners of the Internet and how they're consuming that information. And that is a shared experience, right,
Shannon: 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: um they're seeing it through an individualized frame generally
Shannon: 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? That is bullshit.
Zain: majority of people even
SPEAKER_05: That
SPEAKER_00: That is bullshit.
SPEAKER_05: bullshit.
SPEAKER_00: bullshit.
Shannon: 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: 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: Follow-up question very quickly to both of you. Do Canadians have, in your mind, a
Zain: pretty 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? That's
Carter: That's one of the poles of decision of values that I think really defines Canadians, their sense of fairness versus 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. So 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: 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: to the earlier point the
SPEAKER_05: to the
Shannon: the danger for unions and union comms that i've noticed over the years is that they'll they will because fairness does pull well to 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 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
Shannon: is that they're figuring it out,
Shannon: right? And when you move above kind of the sort of drumbeat of labor comms and into a really well-resourced campaign, you get what just happened with our Canada component, which is popping above just fairness, which is 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: Final question, bold
Zain: 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, says to, of course, oppose what the back-to-work legislation was by this government. Carter,
Zain: you've explained why they've done it. Explain to me if it's bold or risky from a political calculus perspective.
Carter: 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 It included the NDP as an entity in this overarching conversation. So it was neither bold nor risky. It was something that was calculated and efficient. It made sense for them to do so. So they opposed the government, as is their want as the opposition party.
Carter: Shannon? I
Shannon: can't decide. Because essentially what they've decided to do is basically lie to people And
Carter: Because
SPEAKER_04: Because
SPEAKER_04: so, yeah, yeah, we're
Shannon: yeah, yeah, we're on the side of the 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 in the Harper government. They did it within the first six months in 2011.
Shannon: In the summer of, actually it was in the first month, I think.
Shannon: By June, July, they were legislating back. I think it was Cup W at the time when
Shannon: when they won their majority. look uh they've done a turn towards uh taking more um labor-friendly positions they've ditched all of their old like super anti-union you know like the union audit uh legislation commitment all of those kinds of stuff they've 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 uh
Shannon: uh was one of the things they committed to in the last election um
Shannon: um and
Shannon: and uh so i think it's really interesting that like i And I think it goes beyond trying to mow the NDP's lawn. 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: many seats as they wanted to was the collapse of the NDP. But I
Shannon: I
SPEAKER_00: I
Shannon: I
Shannon: 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: is because we're going into really rough patches in
Shannon: terms of layoffs and plant closures and other big, big challenges for private sector unionized workers in Ontario, in auto and steel and aluminum, and
Shannon: and not just in southwest Ontario, but there for sure. And
Shannon: 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: And so that's
Shannon: 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. Look
Zain: at
Zain: 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 Philips, Stephen Carter. We shall see you next time.
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