Originally Posted by
LLLQNH
There is no furlough provision in Hong Kong COS, traditionally furlough for airline pilots is an American thing where by you are simply no longer required and you don't work and you don't get any pay, if and when things pick up you get to come back to work if you so choose! This does not exist at Cathay, nor does it exist in Hong Kong, or the majority of the on-shored base locations, no idea what the CBa on the USA bases says.
In Hong Kong and the majority of our bases we have redundancy and the associated redundancy payment which is better than furlough as you don't get any severance payment on furlough with a US airline, so if and when we make cuts at Cathay they will be redundancies not furloughs, and they will come with the legally required payouts! This is why it's much better for the company to negotiate a reduction in wages and conditions (in the short term) than to start making employees redundant.
Given that very clear section in the contract that's titled "LAYOFF AND RECALL" I beg to differ.
FWIW, many US carriers DO have pay protection furlough/layoff provisions in their CBA. As does CX (6 months pay protection on one form of the contract). Which is one of the many reasons US carriers sought voluntary (paid) leave.
Perhaps we're stuck in semantics.