The Canadian government has ordered binding arbitration in the dispute between Air Canada and its flight attendants union, the latter which struck the airline a week ago last Saturday. The union is crying foul over not having gotten its way, accusing the airline, in typical union fashion, of sandbagging (the union’s term) the negotiations.

On the other hand, there’s this, also, from the union regarding those negotiations.

The airline said it offered its flight attendants a 38% increase in total compensation over a four-year period. The proposal also offered a 12% to 16% rise in hourly pay in the first year. The union said the pay offers failed to help its members recover after historically-high inflation this decade.

Leave aside the minor fact that the airline didn’t cause the inflation, the Canadian government’s response to economic factors did, so the union’s beef regarding the effects of inflation is properly between it and the government.

What the union is choosing to ignore in its inflation beef is that the airline suffers just as much from that historically-high inflation and must also deal with the resulting price increases and current elevated price levels.