Sia cargo pilots prevail
SIA Cargo pilots now 'on a par with those at SIA'
by Conrad Raj 04:45 AM Jul 06, 2011
SINGAPORE - The pilots of SIA Cargo, the cargo subsidiary of national carrier Singapore Airlines, have successfully concluded their first collective agreement (CA) with the company.
This is the first CA to be concluded with the pilots of SIA Cargo, which was spun off as a subsidiary in 2001. The CA will be backdated to Jan 1 of this year and will last for three years.
Negotiations on the CA began last September. As part of the agreement, the subsidiary's 300 pilots have also accepted the company's offer of a lump sum payment in lieu of the service increment for 2009 which was supposed to have gone for arbitration tomorrow.
Under the service increment agreement, captains will receive S$2,000 each, while first officers will get S$1,300 each.
The pilots had previously refused the lump sum payment as it would not be carried forward each year and would not be included in computation of bonuses.
"We are pleased with the outcome as we have achieved most of what we wanted - namely to be on a par with the parent carrier. Whatever they will get, we will get,'' said a pilot with the cargo division of the Airline Pilots Association- Singapore (Alpa-S).
The main issues were differences in benefits, especially in medical and travel benefits. "We were previously treated as SIA's poorer cousins," the pilot added.
Meanwhile, SIA has not concluded its 2010/11 CA with its pilots and is scheduled for arbitration on Aug 3.