Air Canada faces potential strike as flight attendants vote
The airline noted that any strike would be subject to a 21-day cooling-off period, which only begins after a 60-day conciliation period expires. In the interim, Air Canada remains committed to reaching a deal.
The airline aims for a 'fair and equitable collective agreement' that acknowledges flight attendants' contributions while supporting the company's 'competitiveness and long-term growth.'
Despite ongoing efforts, including federal conciliation, key issues like pay, unpaid work, and pensions remain unresolved for the flight attendants' union. This contrasts with Air Canada's 5,400 pilots, who secured a nearly 42% cumulative wage increase over four years in a contract last October.
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Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Continental's tyre margins hit by Trump's tariffs, weak dollar
Aug 5 (Reuters) - Continental ( opens new tab reported a weaker second-quarter operating profit for its core tyres business on Tuesday, citing headwinds related to unfavourable foreign exchange rates, U.S. import tariffs and muted demand in Europe. Adjusted operating profit was 401 million euros ($462.59 million) at the German car parts supplier's core unit, below analysts' consensus of 416.8 million. The corresponding margin of 12% also fell slightly short of expectations. The tyre business suffered a net impact in a mid-double-digit million euro range from U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs, as efforts to mitigate them unfold with a delay, it said. But the 15% baseline tariff on EU goods, agreed in July, means Continental will face a slightly smaller headwind and have more room to manoeuvre, finance chief Olaf Schick told Reuters, confirming the company's full-year outlook. The group reported a 0.4% decline in quarterly organic sales amid persistently weak markets. That excluded a negative currency exchange effect of 3.3%, mainly from the U.S. dollar. Continental, which made more than a quarter of its 2024 sales in North America, has seen its profits come under pressure as the euro strengthened by about 12% against the dollar since the start of 2025, reducing the euro value of its U.S. sales. The company's shares fell 2% by 0820 GMT. Continental is in the process of splitting off two of its three businesses, seeking to reposition itself as a pure-play tyre maker, which it hopes will leave it better placed to handle a volatile market rattled by tariffs. The process includes the listing of its automotive division, which supplies a range of technologies for automakers, on September 18, and a planned sale of its Contitech unit. Schick said on Tuesday that Contitech's Original Equipment Solutions (OESL) business would be sold in the third quarter, without providing details on the buyer or deal price. The automotive business generated a profit margin of 4% in the quarter, ahead of market expectations, thanks to cost cuts and sustained price adjustments, Continental said. "We've worked hard to make our group sectors more resilient and more agile," CEO Nikolai Setzer said in a statement. ($1 = 0.8669 euros)
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Trump firing of statistics chief puts US data credibility at risk, experts warn
Donald Trump's firing of the head of the main agency for producing jobs figures risks propelling the US into the same category as countries notorious for 'cooking the books' such as Argentina and Greece, experts have warned. Donald Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioner last Friday, after accusing her agency of 'faking' the latest employment figures for 'political purposes,' which showed the US economy adding a lower-than-expected 73,000 jobs in July. The BLS, the US government official source for labor statistics since 1884, also revised down the estimates of new positions created in May and June by a combined 258,000. Trump provided no evidence for his accusations against McEntarfer, which he reinforced in social media posts on Monday, calling the bureau's latest reports 'rigged' and concocted. But his decision jeopardizes the US's tradition of impartial and reliable statistic collection on which the country's economic stability and international reputation depends, specialists have told the Guardian. Erica Groshen, McEnterfer's predecessor as BLS commissioner during Barack Obama's presidency, warned earlier this year that an impending civil-servant rule change that presaged last Friday's sacking could usher in a 'politicization' of government statistical bodies – whereby experts are pressured to produce massaged numbers that fitted an incumbent president's agenda. She raised the specter of Greece and Argentina, where official statistics became discredited as a result of government-instigated misrepresenting of figures. The International Monetary Fund stopped accepting the Argentinian government's inflation figures in 2013 after officials were found to have deliberately understated the rate for the previous six years. After threatening Argentina – historically one of the IMF's biggest borrowers – with expulsion, the organization did not extend another loan to it until 2018. In the case of Greece, government statisticians were accused of having made inflation and soaring budget deficits 'disappear' in the 1990s as the country sought respectable-looking numbers that would enable to qualify for the single European currency, the euro. Greece subsequently joined the currency, but at an exorbitant long-term price. The 2008 global financial crash plunged its economy into a deep recession, and the government was forced to accept multi-billion dollar bailouts from the IMF and European Union – at the cost of painful cuts to social services. Andreas Georgiou, who became head of Greece's main statistics agency during the crisis, even faced prosecution after he discovered that authorities had been dramatically understating budget deficits for years. Both countries experienced severe political backlashes. In Argentina, after two further IMF loans failed to stabiliize its economy, Javier Milei, a populist economist and ally of Trump, was elected in 2023 promising to take a chainsaw to the governing bureaucracy and many public services. In Greece, a succession of left and rightwing governments have taken office amid a rise in support for radical and populist parties, giving rise to concerns for the health of the country's democracy. Talking to the Guardian, Groshen warned of comparable scenarios following a rule change rolled by the White House's office of personnel management in April. 'Bureau of Labor Statistics leaders could be fired for releasing or planning to release jobs or inflation statistics unfavorable to the president's policy agenda,' she wrote in a briefing paper. The revision altered the category of about 50,000 permanent civil servants to 'policy/career' status, making their removal easier. Originally tabled in April to allow 30 days for comments, it gave agencies the right 'to expeditiously remove career employees in policy-influencing positions for poor performance or misconduct, such as corruption or for injecting partisanship into the performance of their official duties'. The precise roles of officials affected were not defined, but Groshen pointed out that, if implemented, the president would determine who would be reclassified. The change stemmed from an executive order Trump issued on his first day back in the White House on 20 January. It stated that the power of 'policy-influencing' civil servants is 'delegated by the president, and they must be accountable to the president'. Groshen, now a specialist in government statistics at Cornell University, said the changes in civil servant status would make it easier for the government to tamper with numbers it disliked. 'There are a number of changes to the civil service that makes it much easier for the administration to interfere with the activities of statistical agencies and that worries me,' she said. Under increased threat of removal, civil servants in federal statistics bodies 'might also face pressure to change methodologies or reveal pre-release information', she wrote. 'By making it easier to remove employees if a president determines that they are interfering with his or her policies, it increases the potential for passivity or political loyalty to be prioritized over expertise and experience.'
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
The one thing Donald Trump isn't saying about tariffs
Donald Trump's words and actions rarely align perfectly. If you watch carefully, what he doesn't say can be just as telling as what he does. 'Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again, to bring down the prices of all goods,' he told the nation ahead of his re-election. The US president declared on 2 April would 'forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn', only to pause tariffs a week later. He promised peace in Ukraine on day one of his presidency, only to later clarify this was 'said in jest'; and has claimed very few people can beat him at golf, only for footage from Scotland to raise questions over just how honest that round might be. As a real estate mogul, reality TV star and political campaigner, Trump learned to bend narrative to his will, even if it meant straying from reality. As president, this often leaves a gap between what he says and what he does. In many cases, the administration's actions are more important to follow than the firehose of words. If you were, say, a US business buying coffee from Brazil, you might have rushed to import it last week after Trump insisted 1 August was the cast-iron deadline for new tariffs. 'It stands strong, and will not be extended,' he wrote on Wednesday – hours before signing an executive order that said new steep tariffs on the country would come into force on 8 August, after all. And if you're a US consumer, you might reasonably ask how inflation can be 'dead', as the White House has claimed, if you're still shelling out more on groceries each month. The president has an awful lot to say about tariffs. They will, he argues, raise 'trillions' of dollars for the US federal government; eliminate trade deficits with other countries; and even punish Brazil for putting his ally, the former president Jair Bolsonaro, on trial for allegedly seeking to seize power after losing the 2022 presidential election. The list goes on. But what about what the president doesn't say? Trump was re-elected last November after repeatedly pledging to rapidly bring down prices for Americans. This assurance formed a central pillar of his election campaign – a regular refrain in rallies, interviews and debates – as millions found it harder to make ends meet after years of inflation. Every policy comes at a cost. Every tax must be paid by someone, somewhere. For consumers, The Budget Lab at Yale estimates the short-term price impact of Trump's tariff changes is equivalent to an average per household income loss of $2,400. What Trump doesn't really talk about the impact of his aggressive tariff agenda on US is prices. One of the few times he has acknowledged it might actually exacerbate inflation led to a bizarre tangent about dolls back in May. Acknowledging that tariffs might cause price rises, Trump suggested American children might have to settle for having 'two dolls instead of 30 dolls'. Back then, Joe Biden was still to blame for any signs of strife in the economy, according to Trump. Now, he argues almost daily Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell is responsible. The biggest indication yet that the US economy is creaking on Trump's watch came on Friday, when official data revealed the labor market had stalled this summer. He unceremoniously fired the veteran official in charge of the statistics – and alleged, without evidence, that the numbers had been rigged. With higher US tariffs now in place on a string of countries, the president and his administration will inevitably say a lot about the benefits of his economic strategy. They are already trying to stifle evidence of drawbacks. They might even raise the prospect of a handout – pitched as a sign of this policy's success, rather than a concession that many Americans are still hard up. But if you're running a small business reliant on trade, or walking into the grocery store on a budget, reality supersedes rhetoric. Words don't pay the bills.
