49er Court Case
On Wednesday 9th December the CX legal team filed an appeal against the High Court judgment in the 49er Case. As mentioned in a previous Update I was quite keen to bring this whole matter to a close but there is too strong a feeling amongst the legal team that the judge has got it wrong in terms of his interpretation of the Employment Ordinance. The EO does provide a level of protection for employees
engaging in legitimate trade union activity outside of the workplace but this was not the basis for selecting any of the 49ers for termination of employment in 2001.
The Company had been tracking attendance records, in great detail, for 30 months prior to July 2001 and the 49ers were selected, primarily, on the basis of their attendance records i.e. their level of participation in the so-called “Sick Out” campaign.
The CX legal team believes that the judge's conclusion, that employees engaging in industrial action such as “Sick Outs” or “Go Slows” is a protected union activity under the EO, is wrong in law and has serious implications for all employers in Hong Kong.
Furthermore, if the Court of Appeal accepts this submission then our legal team believes that the Company was justified in saying that the plaintiffs were not working in the airline’s best interest. This would also bring into question the award of record libel damages to the dismissed pilots.
Hopefully the appeal will be heard without too much delay although this will depend on how busy the courts are.
Nick Rhodes
DFO
I wonder what he's going to write after Cathay lose their appeal?
What a tosser.
Presumably it will be about how the appeal judges got it wrong as well?