Hong Kong Airlines (HKA)

[flyer25]

HR

Ahh Dusky, I think you hit it on the head. But nothing I say here will change it anytime soon so you just have to accept the deal. Things change at a snails place here in Mainland China or Hong Kong. It's about control, it's been that way from the dawn of men and women. We have always had systems of control of the masses thru various methodologies religions, economic, governmental, etc etc People are conditioned here to be lorded over by the government system, employer, etc etc. It's the structure of things for now. But I do see things in certain areas of China changing but very very slowly. Well, let me qualify that, by say that in the major cities life seems to be accelerating out of control in terms of people entering the middle class and looking for the same things that are in western countries. As China, expands and opens it's market even more to fully in brace Capitalism, not that I am a fan of Capitalism, then the people will naturally want to have more control of their private life, work life, and even government rights or concepts that will include many more ideas of rights. This will naturally lead to a struggle with the current system. This struggle exist today, but it is not so easy to speak out still and demand changes as it is in the west. So, people here tend to keep their feelings on matters private, any threat to the system could land you in trouble. Most of the freedoms that you see today that are left in say America or Europe took centuries to materialize and lots of blood shed to forge. Proof of change in China can only be measure by maybe older guys who remember a China 30 years ago that looks nothing as it does today.

But I have gotten way far a field from the question. HR in at least the case of HKA is designed to maintain employer control of employees, the pilots being contractual employees. If you are a good boy or girl at HKA, you can be offered a permanent contract with HKA and this does happen. But you really have to keep your head down and don't rock the boat. Most of the happiest guys at HKA do this or live in the Philippines or Malaysia or somewhere else. They try to build a life away from the company and just stay out of the stream of conflicts and go with the flow. But as you read the contract language, you will immediately realize that all the language favors the company in all aspects the company maintains an iron clad leverage on you. So, read the contract carefully at HKA, there is also a confidentiality clause included in the contract at HKA about releasing the contents or it's language to the public. Again, always trying to maintain the company leverage and also hide things like bonds which are illegal in HK and not enforceable in courts HK. So, why even include this if this is not enforceable? The real reason is I believe hidden mostly in termination language when you leave illegally and maybe it gives the company leverage for recovery in a court if you took them to court they could complicate your case by trying to recoup training cost while stepping aside from the specific language of a bond. I also believe it conditions you psychologically to believe you owe something HKA and plants a seed in your head that you can not leave easily. HKA just recently lost a labor case, brought by a few pilots with regards to the 28 days of annual pay. I asked my bud about it. It will require the company to give 48 days of annual leave or pay 20 days for annual leave to each pilot per year. The company wasn't happy as most companies are never happy to be told to comply and have remained silent while they examine how they can legally get out of it. They did issue an internal email with regards to it but they were short on specifics as they normal do at the company. We will see how things play out. But this is the way here, so either you like it or you move on somewhere else. But things are not so good in many places as I have said, so you are really stuck these days with a lot of these companies and policies that are not so friendly or rather favorable to pilots. The money is attractive and believe me, but the path can be very complicated to make a life in HK or China as many of you have already read in other post. But I always recommend a commuting contract if you can get it.