Police remove a person from the area as Air Canada baggage handlers stand outside during a a wildcat walkout at Toronto's Pearson International Airport early Friday March 23.Victor Biro/The Associated Press
The vindictive discourtesy of three Air Canada baggage handlers on Thursday toward Lisa Raitt, the federal Minister of Labour, had a snowball effect, causing disruption to the travel of about 24,000 people.
"It does not take much imagination to picture a world in which everyone with a grievance or a complaint could address it through illegal self-help," said Martin Teplitsky, a lawyer and arbitrator, in his reasons for his cease-and-desist order on Friday against the wildcat strike by about 150 Air Canada employees. "We would be living in a jungle, not in a civilized democracy." He was not overstating the case.
Ms. Raitt had referred an Air Canada labour dispute to the Canadian Industrial Relations Board, thereby preventing a strike during a week that is a school holiday in parts of Canada. The three baggage handlers took it upon themselves to subject her to slow clapping – a practice described by the Oxford English Dictionary as "slow, rhythmic clapping by an audience as a sign of displeasure or impatience." Moreover, they obstructed Ms. Raitt's passage, so that she had to be escorted out through an alternative route in the airport.
The three employees were sent home for 72 hours, but with pay – which they did not merit. Rumours spread that they had been fired. Evidently it did not occur to the 150 wildcatters to pause to inquire whether that was true.
Mr. Teplitsky called upon Air Canada and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers to meet and agree on disciplinary measures; otherwise, he will impose the penalties. The union ought to take the arbitrator's strong words to heart and consent to serious consequences for the employees who violated their duties not only to their employer, but above all to their customers, the travellers.