Let me start by saying I am all for cadets getting a housing allowance but there is a lot of misinformation flying about regarding the Hong Kong Governments “Race Discrimination Ordinance” and how this affects expat terms and conditions. The company is certainly playing on this ignorance and misinformation to the point I’m beginning to wonder whether anyone in the AOA has actually read it. In your genuinely worthwhile effort to try and get housing for cadets, you have fallen into a trap of wrongfully using the RDO to support your case. Let me make it very clear to the AOA GC. There is absolutely nothing in the RDO that forbids companies based in Hong Kong employing expatriates on expat terms now or in the future. Section: 13. Exception for employment of person with special skills, knowledge or experience, Paragraph (1), (c), (i) & (ii) specifically allows for it and Section: 14. Exception for existing employment on local and overseas terms of employment, allows for existing contracts to continue even if they are in violation of the ordinance. CX unfortunately, has deliberately chosen to interpret the RDO in a way that means they are unwilling to pay expat terms to new hire DE expat pilots that in the past would have been employed on expat terms and conditions because they were bringing skills, knowledge and experience to Hong Kong that was readily available here.
This is how a mate of mine who works for a large law firm in Hong Kong recently put it to me:
The differential treatment for employees on “local terms” from their colleagues on “expat terms” continue to be allowed if those terms of employment existed when the RDO came into force. For new hires, differential terms must be justified on the basis of the expatriate employee having skills, knowledge or experience not readily available in Hong Kong.
This is all assuming of course that all cadets are Hong Kong Chinese which we all know they aren’t. This raises the question, is the RDO really relevant at all in this case as the different terms of conditions wasn’t based on ones race but was based on ones employment stream.
RACE DISCRIMINATION ORDINANCE