SIA Changes the Contract - Again!
Life seems to have a depressingly uniform predictability for the pilots of Singapore Airlines. I¡¯ve just had a call from an ex-colleague who recently interviewed for the airline (despite my considered advice not to) and who, amongst other things, mentioned the speech made last week by the Chairman of the SIA Board, the gist of which was that in future, pilots could expect annual bonus payments to be capped at the equivalent of two months salary, whatever the magnitude of profits made by the airline.
The current projected fiscal 2005 record SIA profit figure indicates, according to Alpa-s, that the next annual bonus payable within the terms of the present Collective Agreement should be in the 5-6 months salary range, so it rather looks like SIA is about to unilaterally change the pilot contract - yet again!
In light of back pay still unreturned to the pilots from the (convenient) SARS panic of two years ago, when SIA chopped salaries at record speed (after strong-arming a particularly complient Alpa-s Chairman), the proposed bonus cuts merely add insult to injury against a backdrop of very high pilot productivity and relatively low fixed salaries.
Interesting to note that the common threads of ex-pat feeling amongst all the SIA pilots my colleague managed to speak with, were ones of outrage and powerlessness that past and presently proposed Collective Agreement changes should have been forced on them under circumstances engineered by the Company that produced an inability to give notice to quit by virtue of bonds, bank guarantees and monies owed to them that would be forfeited following such action. In a nutshell, ¡°Once you¡¯re dumb enough to sign, they have you by the short and curlies and do just what the hell they like¡±, as one commentator put it. All said that they would not be renewing their contracts and could not wait to leave the airline.
The tale has a happy ending, however. My colleague has decided he wouldn¡¯t touch SIA with a barge pole! Other aspirants take note.