Hi...
received the following this evening,with the comment that " it is unlikely that the SIA Pilot Union will win this round,considering the pressure that it now faces . "
Cheers
==============================================
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/top...90990,00.html?
SIA could lose $1b this year, warns PM
He says airline could go into 'intensive care unit' if pilots do not accept cost-cutting moves such as no-pay leave
By Lydia Lim
PRIME Minister Goh Chok Tong yesterday added the weight of his voice to urge Singapore Airlines (SIA) pilots to accept cost-cutting measures and warned that the carrier's losses could mount to $1 billion this year.
Wage cuts are needed to help the national carrier stay viable, he said, pointing to how passenger traffic has plunged since the start of the year.
Last month, SIA lost $204 million and it expects to make its first-ever quarterly loss.
Yesterday, Mr Goh said: 'SIA is in an emergency and if the management and the staff of SIA do not handle the situation well, SIA could well go into the intensive care unit.'
His comments to reporters after an event at Marine Parade Community Club come ahead of tomorrow's meeting between the pilots' union and the SIA management to discuss their differences over cost-cutting measures.
He was the third Cabinet minister in as many days to call on the pilots to settle these differences.
The pilots have refused to take 10 to 12 days of compulsory no-pay leave every two months unless SIA first releases 120 foreign pilots based overseas.
Mr Goh took the side of the airline's management yesterday when he made it clear that acceding to the pilots' request would send the wrong signal to foreigners, whom he said SIA needs as there are not enough Singaporean pilots and cabin crew to run its global operations.
If retrenchments are necessary, they should be based on merit, not nationality, he said. 'I hope the pilots can understand this. It is not in their interest to protect their jobs this way.
'The best way to protect their jobs will be to ensure Singapore Airlines remains a quality airline, having quality crew and quality pilots.'
Like Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and National Trades Union Congress chief Lim Boon Heng, who spoke on Friday, he pointed out that SIA's problems did not just start with the Sars outbreak.
Since the Sept 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the airline industry has undergone massive restructuring to become more efficient and SIA has to do the same to survive the competition, he said.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Wages are an important indicator to foreign investors. If wages are sticky downwards - they go up but never come down - then they say this place is hopeless.'
- PM Goh, on the need to reduce wages and other business costs in order for Singapore to remain attractive to foreign investors
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
British Airways, for example, has cut 17,000 jobs in the last two years and plans to slash its workforce by another 23 per cent this year.
To SIA's 1,600-strong pilots' union, Mr Goh had this message: It is during a time of crisis that a union shows its character.
'If the union now shows a selfish character and seeks to protect the jobs of its members, then I would be disappointed,' he said.
Mr Goh reminded the pilots that the Government has played a big role in building up SIA and creating jobs for them.
The negotiations for SIA's air traffic rights are done by the Government, he said. Its efforts in building up Changi Airport into a global air hub have also increased SIA's passenger traffic.
He called on the pilots to make personal sacrifices for SIA, which he called 'an icon of Singapore', but said that the Government would not intervene if negotiations reached a stalemate.
Turning his attention to the overall economy, Mr Goh focused on the importance of wage restructuring, a theme that is set to dominate the Government's agenda in the coming months.
He warned that if Singapore failed to reduce wages and other business costs during this economic downturn, foreign investors would in future give it a miss in favour of other cheaper places.
Costs in some countries, such as Malaysia, China and Hong Kong, have become lower relative to Singapore's because their currencies are pegged to the US dollar, which has depreciated, he noted.
'Wages are an important indicator to foreign investors,' he said.
'If wages are sticky downwards - they go up but never come down - then they say this place is hopeless.'
==============================================
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/com...90986,00.html?
Getting SIA on course
By Dominic Nathan
THE WAY I SEE IT
IF YOU still have any doubts that Singapore is going through its worst ever crisis, then you only have to look at the fortunes of Singapore Airlines, the flagship company of Singapore Inc.
In many ways a microcosm of Singapore, the airline is fighting the same triple threats of Sars, terrorism and a slowing global economy, while battling to save jobs and prevent a slide into the red for the first time in its 30-year history.
And both SIA and Singapore are at war while undergoing leadership changes.
A new team led by chief executive Chew Choon Seng has eased into the cockpit at SIA, just as Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong reshuffled his Cabinet to make sure a new generation of leaders is in place before 2007, when the next General Election is due.
The two new crews will be counted on to see both carrier and country through the most turbulent skies ever.
And the men at the helm are leading by example.
Ministers and top civil servants will take up to a 10 per cent cut in their monthly pay from July, bringing the total reduction in their salaries to 24-29 per cent overall, after an earlier round of cuts in 2001.
At about the same time on Thursday,
SIA announced that 240 senior staff from the chief executive down will have their wages cut by between 22.5 per cent and 27.5 per cent.
But the real test for both teams will be in how well they can convince everyone down the line to accept wage cuts and even job losses.
SIA has already stumbled.
Its 1,600 pilots here have rejected a call for wage cuts across the board.
They argue that their 120 London-based colleagues earn more and suffer fewer disruptions to the lives because their rosters are planned well in advance, and they are not on standby duty.
Their solution to the airline's projected excess of about 100 pilots is to cut the number of pilots based overseas.
The dispute looks likely to go to arbitration, with no compromise in sight.
If it does, it will be the second time in nine months that mediators from the Manpower Ministry will be asked to referee a fight between the two.
After the last dispute over in-flight rest breaks ended in a MOM-brokered compromise in August, both sides had said they were going to chart a new course in their labour relations.
They are way off-course again.
And with the National Wages Council warning last week that more job cuts are in store, SIA's stumble could signal more resistance to suffering the pain of wage cuts and, more importantly, accepting the need for wage reform.
Perhaps, the current SIA dispute is not the best example to cite for making a case for wage reforms of the type the NWC is calling for.
But reforms are needed within the airline.
SIA had depicted its overseas-based pilots as being no different from other employees.
Former SIA chief executive Cheong Choong Kong had said: 'They will have to take their share of pain also, but no more and no less than any other pilot.'
The pilots association, however, argues that an across the board cut will not result in pain being shared equally because an existing disparity in the terms and conditions of service results in London-based pilots earning more and suffering fewer disruptions to their lives by not having to be on standby.
Simply chopping all foreign-based pilots while retaining poor performers on the local payroll is also not the solution.
Mediation efforts must go beyond finding a solution to the immediate problem and look at how labour relations between pilots and management can be brought back on course again, for good.
Then there will be no doubt that SIA will emerge from this crisis stronger than before.
(E-mail:
[email protected])