I can see it now..
From The South China Daily Standard
All not well with HK Flag Carrier
Having secured the “Best Red in Business on grey, white and green aircraft based in Hong Kong” award from the Airborne Knitting Club magazine, it would appear that all is not well at Cathay Pacific. Known for long-running disputes with its staff, but particularly its pilots, this time the dispute appears to be between locally employed and expatriate aircrew.
A thread on a popular aircrew forum, PPruNe (Professional Pilots Rumour Network) has highlighted a deep rift between factions of crews; the locally employed pilots striving to be paid expatriate perks and expatriate pilots saying that they’re not entitled to them. What started as a debate quickly degenerated into a bile-filled rant, with posters such as “CXChildLabour” and “iLuvPX”, slugging it out in public for all to see. Mud-slinging, name calling, nyeh, nyeh, nyeh, nyeh nyeh retaliations, CAPITALISATION - the list goes on.
A spokesman for the company was asked how this was all being received in Cathay City, the headquarters of Cathay Pacific. “Obviously we’re delighted that this is all going on as we can now gauge how united the HKAOA really is in this matter. We were somewhat concerned by the recent recruitment by the HKAOA of a significant number of our locally employed pilots but this latest episode has shown that the move was purely cosmetic and, clearly, we have nothing to worry about.”
“When I was studying for my PhD in industrial relations at Harvard, my thesis was entitled, “The Internet as an Industrial Tool - how to exploit workforce divisions”. It was fascinating to see how a well-timed, anonymous post on a bulletin board could draw scathing attacks from workers without even knowing who they were ranting against - not only was it illuminating, it was really quite amusing. So far, this has been without doubt the most amusing. This is one of the more powerful tools that management has to understand the psyche of its workforce and the best thing is, it's free. It’s obvious that these posters have no concept of the damage that they are doing, not only to their cause but to their Association and their profession. I’m not entirely sure that some of them qualify to post on a forum that has the word “Professional” in its title”.
The debate(?) continues.
STP