Unified Payscales
Gentlemen,
Many OB (Organisational Behaviour) studies have shown that RELATIVE pay is far more important than ABSOLUTE pay. The village leader in Africa is envied by his subjects because he owns one pig more than everyone else. In RELATIVE terms he is rich and probably very contented, in ABSOLUTE terms (compared to us let's say) he is a poor man!
Here at Cathay there will never be harmony on the flightdeck until everyone is rewarded equally for doing the same job. Our B-scale CNs do as good a job of operating our aircraft safely as do our A-scalers; otherwise they wouldn't have passed our demanding command course. The benchmark used to be, 'would you be happy to put your family down the back with that guy in charge?' There is only ONE standard on our flightdecks and achieving and maintaining that standard should be rewarded by ONE payscale period. If there is any A-scale C&T out there who checks B-scale CNs and A-scale CNs to a different standard then please speak up. In my experience the C&T department don't expect a sub-standard performance from a B-scale CN because he is on a sub-standard award. Please tell me otherwise and I'll put 40% less effort into my next PC and Line Cx!
The removal of this inequality is what the AOA should be striving for and many A-scale CNs agree, but unfortunately they're not the ones sitting on the GC. CN1 on the seniority list should be our 'ground zero' and is where the A & B scale should merge. At the other end of the scale all future DEFOs should join on B-scale pax pay and conditions as they do today. Market forces (ie. inability to simultaneously recruit on different COS in the same base area) will force the company to abolish freighter scales and bring all FOs up onto the same scale. Voila! One unified FO scale (UFO!) and one unified CN scale. This SHOULD be the goal of the AOA negotiating committee and not the perpetuation of the inequality which we endure today and which has led to much destructive infighting. This is not 'pie in the sky' but it is achievable by simply voting NO.
Bypass pay is a 'red herring' - it is only paid for the period you are Cat A between assessment and command course and is currently 2-3mths. Hardly compensation for an extra 3-4 yrs in the RHS!
RA65 is a 'red herring' in HKG because your retirement age remains 55 if you elect to remain on COS99! The company CANNOT seriously be concerned about impending legislation change in HKG if RA55 will remain in place in our present contract.
So just vote NO and take a payrise if it is imposed. The FACA and the COS99 DEFO clause are our only trump cards, let's not trade them cheaply.
Remember there is NO later!