As is the case with most expat jobs, you can be fired for any or no reason. The glory days of Cathay seem to be a fading memory.
>>"They couldn't get away with that in Australia or the States or the UK," he said, adding that the union was seeking further legal advice about its options.<<
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Thursday, August 2, 2001
Pilots denied appeal against sack
Cathay refuses to allow internal hearings over dismissals, sparking call for tougher laws
EXCLUSIVE by VICTORIA BUTTON
Cathay Pacific has written to pilots fired during the ongoing industrial dispute denying them internal appeals against their dismissals because the sackings were "not as a result of any particular offence".
The airline says in its letter it is not obliged to provide any reason for having exercised its power to end the pilots' employment.
"The company will vigorously defend any allegation that the termination of your employment was unlawful," said the letter, dated July 24 and signed by Captain Ken Barley, Cathay's director of flight operations.
The letter, sent to pilots who responded to their dismissal with a standard union reply, has sparked fresh calls from unionists for tougher employment laws.
SAR workers who can prove they have been "unreasonably" sacked can be granted only money they are owed, such as holiday pay - and cannot be reinstated without their employer's consent. Different rules apply to workers unlawfully dismissed - for example because they are pregnant.
In a May report, the United Nations expressed human rights concerns at Hong Kong's employment laws. However a Labour Department spokeswoman said the protection offered by current laws was reasonable.
Cathay's director of corporate development, Tony Tyler, yesterday refused to comment on why the pilots had been sacked. "We're legally entitled to do it and we have exercised our legal rights," he said. Asked whether it was fair, he said Cathay employees' contracts stated they could be terminated on payment of three months' salary. Similar conditions would apply to most Hong Kong workers, he added.
Previously, Cathay has publicly said the pilots were sacked after careful review because the company had "lost confidence" in them - although many claimed a spotless record. So far during the dispute, Cathay has sacked three pilots using standard disciplinary procedures and 49 en masse outside that system.
John Findlay, the general secretary of the pilots' union, the Aircrew Officers' Association, said Hong Kong would never become a leading city as long as employers could fire workers on a whim.
"They couldn't get away with that in Australia or the States or the UK," he said, adding that the union was seeking further legal advice about its options.
Stephen Smith, a senior associate at law firm Linklaters & Alliance, described Hong Kong's unreasonable-dismissal legislation as "fairly toothless". In the UK - where Cathay's major shareholder is based - companies can be forced to re-hire unfairly sacked employees and to pay compensation, he said.
More evidence was needed in the UK than in Hong Kong that a company had followed fair procedures before sacking employees, he said.
However, unreasonable-dismissal legislation could apply in Hong Kong even if employers had clauses stating they could terminate employees' contracts on payment of salary in lieu of notice, he noted, without referring specifically to the Cathay case.
Organising secretary for the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, Mak Tak-ching, said more than 70 per cent of the 100 to 200 calls to their hotline each day were from unfairly dismissed workers. He called for laws to better protect workers.
http://hongkong.scmp.com/ZZZO23B5RPC.html