When 99% Say No to the Deal

In August 2025, around 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants went on strike. A central issue was unpaid work: the union said crews weren’t paid for time spent boarding passengers and on other duties on the ground before and after flights.

The federal government ordered binding arbitration and a return to work. The union refused to comply. After overnight talks, a tentative agreement was reached on 19 August, and flights resumed.

Then the members voted. Between late August and 6 September, 99.1% of flight attendants rejected the wage portion of the deal their own negotiators had brought back.

It’s hard to find a clearer example of a negotiation that looked finished and wasn’t.

Researchers sometimes call this a two-level game. Every negotiator is dealing with the other side across the table, and with their own side behind them. A deal both teams can live with means nothing if the people behind one of them won’t accept it.

But here’s the twist. The wages were then sent to an arbitrator. In February 2026, the award was widely reported to closely resemble the offer members had rejected. “This is not the outcome the Union fought to achieve,” the union said.

So was the rejection pointless? Not necessarily. A 99% vote sends a message that no negotiator can ignore about morale, trust and the next round of talks. It just doesn’t guarantee better numbers.

Marta Skarbek’s This is Negotiation looks at negotiations involving multiple stakeholders, including a case study of a nurses’ union, and the importance of understanding and managing expectations on your own side as carefully as on the other.

When the people you represent reject the deal you negotiated, whose failure is it: the negotiator’s, or the process’s?

This is Negotiation by Marta Skarbek: https://a.co/d/0a7z6xLx

#Negotiation, #CollectiveBargaining, #LabourRelations, #AirCanada, #Unions, #Stakeholders, #Leadership, #Communication, #HR, #BusinessSkills, #ThisIsNegotiation, #MartaSkarbek