I used to be a flight attendant. Here’s what the job taught me about labour, gender – and, yes, unpaid work | Canada Voices

Ann Hui is The Globe and Mail’s generations reporter.

The same thing happens every time I’m on an airplane.

I’ll have my seat belt on, suitcase and bag tucked away, the sounds of the plane’s engine groaning below.

And then, from overhead, the aircraft chimes will sound. Like Pavlov’s dog, that chime will set off in my brain a series of emergency commands first drilled into me over two decades ago.

“Emergency! Leave everything behind! Come this way! Jump! Slide! Move Away!”

It’s been 20 years since I worked as a flight attendant. I spent three summers in my early 20s as a member of Air Canada’s cabin crew. It was a job I’d applied for mostly on a lark, for the experiences I’d gather and the stories I might one day tell, for the opportunity to travel and visit parts of the world I’d yet to see.

It was all of those things. But it was also one of the most physically strenuous, mentally trying, and, often, thankless jobs I’ve had, too. It taught me important lessons early on about the value of my labour, and how that value is coloured by class and gender. And, as evidenced by recent events – by the bitter negotiations between Air Canada and its 10,000-plus flight attendants before reaching a new contract – not much has changed.

The value of my work – my worth to the airline – was made clear from the very first days.

This was 2004, and I was in my second year of undergrad studies at the University of British Columbia. A friend of mine had seen a posting for summer jobs as flight attendants with Air Canada – her dream job. She asked if I might come along.

We turned up that day for what the airline referred to as a “cattle call” – an open invitation for anyone to come apply. We lined up along with thousands of others at a downtown Vancouver hotel. We were shuffled from one line to the next, from one interview to the next.

The message, throughout that day, was obvious: There are thousands who want this job. Every single one of us is replaceable.

I made it through the process, along with about 70 others, and placed in an eight-week paid training program, though none of us had technically been hired yet. In training, we memorized the configurations and safety features of different aircraft. Practised putting on emergency masks, and leading one another out of pitch-black cabins. Emptied fire extinguishers in smoke-filled aircraft simulators. Learned what to do during a suspected hijacking, or terrorist attack.

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Throughout the weeks, there were drills, tests, and more tests. Each day, each week, potential colleagues were let go. I saw friends cut for the smallest missteps: For scoring less than 90 per cent on a test, for wearing the wrong shade of black tights, for accidentally shouting one of the emergency commands out of order during a drill.

It was a level of intensity and pressure I hadn’t experienced before and have not experienced since, far surmounting the demands of any academic degree or internship I would later go on to. I don’t remember a word of my master’s thesis, yet every one of those commands is still with me.

At the end of training camp, when just a few dozen of us were left, we were issued yet another reminder of just how expendable we all were. The jobs we were being offered – despite the fact we’d been hired and trained in Vancouver, where we all had lives, had families – were actually in Toronto. If we wanted the job, we’d all have to move.

So here’s the good stuff: The experience, for my 21-year-old self, was every bit as transformative as I’d hoped. Every day was a new experience. I grew, and the world shrank. Every city in the world suddenly became accessible in a way I’d never before dreamed possible.

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The first flight I was assigned was to London. On the same crew was another new hire. Every time we crossed paths throughout that eight hour flight, he and I mouthed to each other excitedly, “We’re going to LONDON!” We spent that first layover riding a double-decker tour bus, eating chips out of paper cones and posing goofily inside of red phone booths.

Over the next summers, I went to Paris, Dublin, Frankfurt, and Hong Kong. I criss-crossed Canada more times than I can count. Learned how to talk to strangers, and cope with stressful situations. Learned how to listen to people so that they felt understood. It remains the best training I’ve had not only for journalism, but life.

But it was also gruelling. It’s an ugly truth in many “dream job” industries: that the more people want the job, the easier it is to exploit them.

My time was never really my own. There were surprise 4:30 a.m. wake-up calls, telling me to be at the airport in two hours, last-minute reroutes, calls telling me to run, don’t walk, to a new gate, and that no, I wouldn’t be sleeping in my own bed that night.

There were colds and coughs that would linger for weeks, months, because rest – sleep – was impossible. Turbulence so severe that I sprung up into the air and hit the cabin ceiling. Creeps on my flights, or on the subway, who would stop and stare, who treated the uniform like an invitation to approach. I never complained, never booked off sick, ever-fearful that I might be replaced.

For all of this, I was paid $27 an hour. It felt, as a student, like good money. It’s the same message Air Canada repeated in recent weeks, touting the fact that its flight attendants with 10 years of service make, on average, $63 an hour.

But this figure obscures the reality, which is that flight attendants in Canada can only work, on average, about 75 hours a month.

Not that this meant I was on vacation for two weeks out of every month. It is, in fact, full-time work. Many of those “days off” were eaten up by layovers – entire days spent away from home, sleeping in anonymous airport hotels. Or recovering from red-eye flights. Because anyone who’s ever worked an irregular schedule can tell you: A day off after an overnight shift is not really a day off.

That $27 an hour I earned back in 2004 translated to a $24,300 salary pretaxes – barely a living wage even then, when four of us shared a one-bedroom Koreatown apartment. As of last year, according to CUPE, entry-level flight attendants earn just $1,952 a month, pretaxes – or $23,400 gross a year. This is while assigned to live in some of the most expensive cities in the country, like Toronto (where average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $1,700, or Vancouver $2,500).

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And then there was all of the unpaid work. It was the main sticking point in these recent labour negotiations – why thousands of flight attendants walked off the job, forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights. For good reason.

Historically, what flight attendants have been paid does not account for much of the work they actually do. For each flight, I was performing, on average, between 1.5 to 2 hours of unpaid work. Just like passengers, flight attendants are required to arrive at the airport long before their departure time – not suggested, but required. Depending on the aircraft type and route, they’re required to arrive for their shift at the gate between 1 and 1.5 hours ahead of departure.

What this looked like in 2004: For a 9 a.m. flight, I would arrive at Toronto’s Pearson Airport no later than 7:30 a.m., first to physically check in at the crew office, then to gather and read through safety updates, and then make my way to meet the crew at the gate for 8 a.m.

From that point, there was a long list of duties that had to be fulfilled before departure – again, not suggested but required. Going through safety drills, inspecting safety equipment, giving safety briefings, and making sure the aircraft doors were locked and ready. Passengers boarding, asking where to put their luggage, how to connect their headphones, and whether they could switch seats.

By the time the flight actually departed, by the time I’d actually start getting paid, my feet were often already sore.

We similarly weren’t paid for the time after arrival – all of that time it takes after arriving at the gate for passengers to deplane – or for delays, either. According to the union, flight attendants work, on average, 35 hours of unpaid time each month.

As of Thursday, the details of the new contract had not yet been made public, though the union did issue a statement saying “unpaid work is over.”

It was heartening to see. Especially heartening because, as the strike unfolded, the country seemed to rally behind flight attendants. Survey after survey showed – despite the thousands of flights cancelled, the many passengers who were left stranded, the many vacations that were ruined – the majority of Canadians siding with the flight attendants.

What this doesn’t address is the larger issue, which is that unpaid work is a problem that’s common in many female-dominated industries – in many so-called “pink collar” industries, like child care, home support work and nursing. All of these are industries where labour often goes undercompensated, and unappreciated. It’s work that’s critical to our society at large, but devalued because it’s performed by women.

Approximately 70 per cent of Air Canada’s flight attendants are women. In negotiations with its pilots (the vast majority of whom are men; only eight per cent of Air Canada’s pilots are women), the airline gave a 26-per-cent average wage increase for the first year of their new contract. In its initial offer to flight attendants, they offered 8 per cent.

The fact is that all workers deserve to be paid for their time and that regardless of skill, or job, or gender, or class, that all workers deserve to be treated with dignity, and paid fairly.

After three summers, I moved on. Moved on to other jobs, other careers where I felt better appreciated (as a journalist! ha!). But every once in a while, I’ll be on a plane, and hear those chimes. I’ll remember what it felt like to view the world as limitless – and also how it felt to be treated not as a person, but as an employee number.

So, when it comes time to deplane, I’ll make eye contact with the flight attendants, offer a smile, and give my most genuine thanks. Because – while they’re still not getting paid for that time – it’s the very least I can do.