Legality
There may be some legal issues. The 13th month is a contractual payment. SLS re-payment is not. Thirteenth month can only be withheld if profit thresholds are not met. If it turns out that those profit thresholds were met, and 13th month was witheld then it is a serious breach of our COS. One that has much more serious consequences for those of us in Hong Kong. IMHO it is more of a long term worry than whether or not we get SLS back.
SLS may not be given back and there is no contractual or legal reason to force the co. to do otherwise. Hopefully SLS was a one off and is not going to be used anytime soon. The company was very quick to deduct pay from us in a down economy and they are very slow to give profit share in years of record profit.
For those on a base that took SLS, SLS re-payment first is clearly better, however if you look at it from a business point of view, you made a deal and got what was on offer, with no guarentees. 13th month is part of Hong Kong Crew's contract and if it is not paid back the Hong Kong crew have a right to challenge that in court.
In an ideal world remainder of 13th month paid in full first and then SLS repaid.
Of course profitability would have to be above the savings made through SLS !!