Stealthone,
My previous employer had some chinese cabin crew and their contract was breached in a simillar manner as to what is happening in the middle east. One day the girls packed up the bags and went back to China. Overthere they took that airline to the court and won. That airline had no choice but to pay up big bucks as chinese authorities intended to confiscate their offices in China.
I suggest the parallel does not exist because:
- your previous employer was not in China;
- the CC who resigned were Chinese;
- they went back to China and sued there (in their own language);
- the Chinese authorities then indicated an intention to confiscate the airline's offices in China
whereas:
- Emirates pilots are in the UAE;
- Emirates is owned by the Dubai government;
- to sue Emirates, you are effectively suing a Dubai government instrumentality;
- as has been argued, such an action may be very difficult to bring
A parallel might be where (for example) a group of Australian EK pilots went back to Australia and sought to sue Emirates in Australian courts, but unless their employment contracts were made under Australian law or the courts could be persuaded that there was a close and real connection to Australia in the contract, then I'd suggest that an Australian court would decide that it did not have any jurisdiction over the contract. I'd further suggest that pretty much any common-law would decide the same.
Were an application to be made, I'd suggest that An Australian or UK court would invite the applicant to sue in the courts of the state whose law governs the contract.
Chinese courts may see things differently and be willing to assume extraterritorial jurisdiction, or perhaps those CC contracts were made subject to Chinese law.