Agreement reached ?

[Healey]

According to Headline News, a joint press release has been issued confirming agreement on current roster practices.

[Four Holer Roller]

Just listened to the RTHK 8pm news (via internet), and a joint statement by CX and the AOA, read out by the Labour Dept representative, announced a breakthrough in the talks and a commitment to continue the negotiations on Thursday.
The threat to travel over the Christmas and CNY holidays is considered lifted.

Discuss!!!

"RTHK" in your browser works well.

[Darling]

This appears to be only a win for the labour department in the eyes of the public for the short term Christmas period. We can take pride that our united pressure has had an affect, but this only gets us back to the table where we should have been in the first place! It would appear that we would not necessarily need to increase any pressure.
We do need to maintain the safety of the travelling public and our rosters won't change overnight, even if we had a new agreement.
I, along with the rest of you, are completely discusted at the methods used by the Company. It is the mismanagement of this airline that has created the shortage of crew and it is the heavy handed tactics that have them all offside. After making the ultimate threat to its workforce last year the Company now need us to be friends and get on with the expansion. Sorry, but you haven't said sorry, and it is going to take a considerable amount of making up before I will ever trust them again.

Comments?

[billybob]

So correctly stated! The management actually thinks that by coming up to a barely adequate standard of rostering for an international air carrier that we are going to forget all about things like the lack of a standard in pay scales and the swinging of the axe last year.
I still consider it a huge insult that a Captain junior to me in seniority and who lives in the same city as me [ he's not a comuter], flys the same aircraft as me, and has recieved well over $250,000.00 HK more than I this year alone in salary/bonus!! I have absolutely no beef with this person at all BUT I DO have a LARGE bone to pick with the CX/Swire management!! So if they [CX management] think that everything is rosy in airline land THINK AGAIN!!!
This dude has saved up a good number of sick days just for that little time of the year when everybody in HK hands out envelopes full of money to each other. Except CX management of course. Yes with that kind letter of "be sacked or else" and the insult on the pay front I'm afraid I'll be hitting them right in there wallets, cause that's all they understand isn't it.
It sickens me that I would have to cause the lovely people who travel with this airline any grief but folks what else can I/We do when simple things like pay equality are bastardized beyond recognition!!!
Until there is a move of reconciliation like the re-instatement of the 13th month, I believe that I won't be alone in making sure management is kept busy plugging their fingers in the dike!!
Billy Bob

[Healey]

Using sick leave as a weapon is not something I personally approve of. Threatening to use it as such in public (ie here) does us no favours at all.Particularly at a time when we are trying to show that our concerns/actions are not unreasonable.

[Neutral Stability]

Austin, I do empathise with your sentiments. However, if you have been in this company for as long as I have, and witnessed the despicable tactics to which our management have stooped over the years, you may forgive me for saying that, even as a moderate, I now consider the sickness card to be a legitimate industrial retaliation tactic. The tactics that have been used against my family over the past few years have been equally despicable, yet somehow justified by the other side. 'The other side'... do you remember when we were all on the same side! I apologise to those of you who are bored with these 'halcyon days' stories. Should an agreement not materialise, then I, for one, am happy to maintain the status quo, despite any personal costs until, inevitably, this bereft management is brought to its knees. The 'beer maker' and his 'unhealthy form of cooking' sidekick need to resign now. Here is a rhetorical question - what incentive does an extended 55 year old DFO, with provident fund in the bank, have in making any long-lasting improvements in this company's modus operadi. Let's not allow the company to string us along until the timing is to their advantage.

[Old China Driver]

...so, an 'agreement' has been reached has it? One should consider a simple proposition: what use is ANY agreement with this company, when they time and time again abrogate and disregard all and any agreements previously signed? I have a suggestion. As soon as TT issues a press release that is published on say....page 3 of the SCMP, admitting that their previous public utterances have been lies and malicious mis-information, then, and ONLY then will I consider a stand down of my present 'contractual' restrictions. Until there is a demonstrated attempt on the part of our management to right some of the appalling wrongs that have been visited on us, I will remain a sceptic and implacable enemy of this regime. Needless to say, to see the same malicious and inaccurate representations as to what I earn published YET AGAIN IN THE SCMP only reinforces my reasons as to why the time for 'co-operation' with these venal men is at an end. Either there is concrete, immediate and substantial changes for the better in our professional conditions, or the management can continue to rapidly sink into the grip of operational armageddon. We have been abused long enough, and I for one will see to it that I will adhere to my contract TO THE LETTER. I strongly suggest that my collegues to the same. After all, it IS the contract they forced me to sign under the threat of dismissal, so SURELY they can't complain when I am following it chapter and verse.....can they? Oh, by the way TT, what part of 'here comes the third paycut in 3 years' equates with the word 'greedy'?....at least in regard to the aircrew. Shame your mother didn't give you a few more spankings when you were younger. OCD

[This message has been edited by Old China Driver (edited 20 December 2000).]

[The Resistance]

Right On OCD...!! It is amazing isn't it. Management and the union both agree on a news 'blackout' , only to have TT immediately issue a press release that would do Hans Christian Anderson proud! Then, with the announcement of an 'agreement', the same lies and distortions are again published. I am angrier than I ever thought possible, and I am IN NO WAY going to do ANYTHING to help this management out of the hole they have dug for themselves, this airline and it's employees. They have pushed me too far, and I am no longer willing to be suckered along year after year until my very career is hollowed out. TT, you are a truly despicable man, and I hope you choke on your own illicit verbage. KB and NR, where is your ever dwindling sense of fair play? Why is there not a retraction of the lies that were published? Until there is, you can all go to HE-L. My adherence to YOUR contract will be to the letter of it.....and as OCD said, can't see why you would complain about that.....hmmmm? I hope EVERY ONE of my collegues will feel as offended by the way we are being treated as much as I do, and resolve to see this thing through to the end. Do not be taken for fools by these pathetic people any longer.

[billybob]

OCD and piece De Resistance, perfectly stated and gets my blood and emotions boiling big time every time I think about the past 6 years!! Which all adds up to a lot of emotional STRESS, which falls in the category of medical ANO's .... didn't we just read recently about a Silk Air 737 having a STRESSED pilot on board? What about the Egyptian Air incident? Pilot loaded up with debt ..... STRESSED. Don't think I'd want any of those boys near the controls do you? What about your thoughts Nick, Mr. Turnbull and other Board members? I guess you feel you can actively encourage dissension amongst the pilot labour force, by using different pay scales/ different contracts {companys}, and think that meets Flight Safety ANO standards. I wonder if you [the Board] have ever realized that managing a company means to UNITE all resources, especially human ones, in accomplishing a mission or goal. In this case it is the SAFE and efficient transport of peoples and goods from point A to B. This is NOT a dot com outfit or a local corporation in which to enrich the progress of managerial thought and prowess.[ BOY WE CAN SEE THAT CAN"T WE!!] It is a company that is global in it's reach and therefore must manifest itself to international standards of law and buisness practices not only of Hong Kong but in relation to the countries it serves.
The Swire slogan "we reserve the right to manage" essentially means "we reserve the right to stick our heads in the sand, lie, misinform, and look only inwards, as we deem fit". Thankfully, due in LARGE part to AOA resolve, this standard of management is slowly being dragged into the 20th century, not the 21st mind you, but still pointing forward how ever small. BUT.... there's still a LONGGG way to go.
Billy the Bob.