I believe CX has offered “A” scalers “A” scale to 65 because they have hit the hard wall regarding the training limit of the company. We have seen evidence of this over the last few years with FC’s not being done on DESO’s doing their JFO upgrade, line checks not being required anymore for FO’s being RQ’d, the request for “volunteers” for sim duties for SO training and DEFO’s on the PAX fleet. There just aren’t enough trainers, sim instructor, sim slots and sectors to complete the required task for the expansion. If you take into account the wasted resources because of the failures it is even worse. I believe the company has offered the “A” scalers “A” scale to 65 because they had no choice in the short term to drive the expansion forward, not because of some anti-discrimination laws that might become reality. Even if they did become reality because of new laws in HK or bases going onshore, no one (repeat no one) can be forced to work to 65 if they don’t want to. Your current contract is still valid including your RA55 if you so wish. It is just a red herring being thrown around by the company and those that probably don’t realise the implication or should I say the lack of, of anti discrimination laws.
NC, my personal belief and I have no proof to prove one way or the other is that the company has been playing the poker game regarding pay scales past 55. They have probably realised that “B” scale for “A” scalers past 55 hasn’t been accepted by enough of the troops in recent times, whether it be the C&T or line captains going to the freighter to drive the future expansion. They have upped the anti only enough “in their mind” to hopefully stem the retirement flow over the expansion period. They are still hiding their hand though if more needs to be done. Remember CX has a history of only doing what it has to and even then it is like pulling teeth.