Whom truely has the right of employment ?
To answer your question as to "Who has the right to work?" The JAPANESE pilots do, there is no question about it and there are no pilots working here that think otherwise.
As there would be those that believe anything management would tell you as a contractor,
To this comment I have to say that there are no inexperienced pilots here, even our F/O's have over 8,000 hours and the vast majority have been in the furlough marry go round a few times and all of us have been dealing with airline manegements for decades now, to say that we believe blindly whatever the contract company says, forgive my bluntness is just plain stupid. Congratulations on your first post on your new PPRUNE handle there Diesel8 but we all recognize the rhetoric, you can just post it under your usual handle.
For whatever its worth. The Japanese papers are reporting that bankruptcy does not give an employer the right to terminate employment contracts with employees. If this is true, then it is unlikely any Japanese non-contract employees will find themselves involuntarily out of work.
If that indeed is the case in this situation, I would assume that anybody that leaves JAL will do so voluntarily and with a nice separation package. I would also assume that there will be very little political or social pressure to ensure that these people are integrated into another airline such as ANA, after leaving JAL voluntarily with a nice chunk of change that has indirectly come from the government coffers.
Generally speaking, I would be surprised if too many pilots who are not nearing retirement age would be interested in accepting such an offer....
All that to say.... I wouldnt expect a long line of furloughed Japanese pilots from JAL looking for work just yet....
Could the political situation turn against us continuing to work here in Japan? absolutely, it can. We just don't know how the restructuring of JAL and the market conditions will be here in Japan in the next year or so, this bailout of JAL (the last of many throughout the years) looks to be different than all others because in the past they just injected money into JAL but the politics remained the same, this time around with a new government and an outsider just named as the new CEO (very capable and accomplished businessman BTW) we simply cannot say that they won't furlough pilots just because they haven't in the past, we simply don't know how this will play out. As Frate's post illustrated the relationship between the JAL and ANA pilots is not good at all and for years the JAL pilots looked at other airline pilots here in Japan as the non professionals that couldn't get a job in Japans real airline, now that ANA is positioned to become the premier airline in Asia, this comments haven't been forgotten and I see it very difficult to see any integration of JAL pilots into the line at ANA unless they start from year one in the academy at the bottom of the pile, I see the young JAL pilots going for that but the senior guys? I just don't see them exposing themselves to the harsh treatment that they will receive. Now, I do see the possibility of the political situation and government pressures mostly by the Department of labor and the Tax revenue service (not so much the JCAB) of an agreement to offer contract positions to displaced JAL pilots but we will just have to wait and see.
Current state at ANA:
ANA continues with a very aggressive expansion plan and as many of you know they just reinstated an order for additional 777's and 767's the 767 order was specially interesting because they had decided a while back not to get any more and they had changed their 767 options for 787's but they went ahead and placed a new order for 767's and as they have expressed to us, the 767's will remain a viable platform for their operations for years to come. As contract pilots we realize that our employment is based on their needs and not based on personal relationships or even political environment. ANA is still on a deficit of pilots with the attrition of 100 pilots a year and the hiring of only about 50-60 new recruits per year, and this is just attrition, it does not include the new frames that are coming in the next few years. The preliminary information was that they would reduced the hiring for 2010 and see their needs after the reintegration of AJV/AJX but the news that we are getting now is that they will still need to keep hiring throughout 2010, The January class will be the last separate class for both companies and the March class will be a combined class for the new company, the integration will be completed by fall of 2010. As long as this contract will last, a month or a decade. I think I speak for the majority here, we will continue to enjoy a great gig and a great working environment and I for one will gladly release my seat in a month or in a decade to the Japanese national to which this seat really should belong to, when that day comes (again, in a month or in a decade) I will leave the company with a sense of gratitude and I will wish them well, because I think that ANA is a great organization with great professionals and they deserve their time as Asia's premier airline because they have worked hard for it.
