RA55 in Europe; non-discrimatory

[quadspeed]

The European court of Justice ruled that a mandatory retirement age may not be illegal, despite laws banning age discrimination in the workplace. (taken from The Economist, October 20th 2007)

Jan Mazak, an Advocate-General of the European Court of Justice, has rendered an opinion that European law allows individual countries to pass legislation permitting mandatory retirement ages. Thus, a provision in the Spain's discrimination laws that effectively allows employers to force staff to retire at 65 is compatible with European law.

The dispute was brought by Félix Palacios de la Villa against Cortefiel Servicios SA, in which Mr Palacios claims that his dismissal on the ground that he had attained the compulsory retirement age laid down in a collective agreement was unlawful. However, the Advocae-General ruled that the European principle of non-discrimination on grounds of age does not preclude a national law pursuant to which compulsory retirement clauses contained in collective agreements are lawful, where such clauses provide as sole requirements that workers must have reached normal retirement age and must have fulfilled the conditions set out in the social security legislation of the Member State concerned for entitlement to draw a retirement pension under the relevant contribution regime.

The case (C-411/05) has been closely watched by ECA (European Cockpit Association) and BALPA.

Bringing LHR/AMS/FRA on-shore should therefore not affect our COS RA in the UK or any of the European bases within the foreseeable future. Where did those time-share brochures go? :)

[CX Shop Steward]

More to the point, it means that CX's assertion that they MUST introduce RA65 for those based in the UK (Apr08) and Europe (by Apr10 at the latest) is baseless in law.

We all know the one and only reason that CX is introducing RA65 is because they need bums on seats, and the soon-to-be-retired cohort of those approaching age 55 solves their problem nicely, without any training costs. For NR and PW to say anything different is deceitful, mis-informed scare-mongering.

If YOU are based in the UK, and resident in the UK, you WILL be asked to sign CoS08 prior to 6 April 2008. There is NO need for you to do so, and if you do you will be perpetuating the CX tradition of "divide and conquer".

CX are trying to turn their massive miscalculation of the market to their advantage using tactics of fear, as they have always done in the past.

:ok:SAY NO TO CoS08:ok:

[Mr. Bloggs]

Do your really think that some UK based Captain approaching 55 will not sign COS 08?

[BScaler]

Mr Bloggs

What this illustrates is the Company's, (at least partially), fallacious argument when it comes to insisting that they have been 'forced into offering age 65 by virtue of local age discrimination legislation'.

By the way, has anyone out there heard any intention on the Company's part to offering based Cabin Crew retirement at age 65 on their bases in Canada, Singapore and the UK...?! Surely there must be urgent changes to Cabin Crew CoS occurring along these lines...! This is just one more illustration of the fallacious nature of the Company's argument for age 65.

The fact is that they need aircrew now more than ever, age 65 will plug the gap for them, and they need an excuse not to have to bargain with the aircrew community to have their little stop-gap measure implemented. But this 'forced into offering age 65 by virtue of local age discrimination legislation' argument is paper-thin. Why are our AOA representatives swallowing it without question?

P.S. Why does the Company need aircrew, particularly DEFOs, now more than ever, and why the urgency for retirement age 65? These are my thoughts;

quite apart from the current market opportunity to do so, but simply to protect market share out of HKG, the airline needs to expand,
the Company failed to train enough checkers and trainers to cover demand, and since those close to current retiring age are the checkers and trainers they are short of, the Company needs to retain them, but they don't want to pay bypass pay to do so,
some checkers and trainers take up the job primarily for personal financial gain - particularly in the case of A-Scalers wishing to boost their Provident Fund. Once minimum time in the job assures them of the increase in PF, they'll split back to the line, leading to increased checker and trainer turnover,
the requirements of the training task precludes the use of the 'stovepipe' training system currently in place where one of each aircrew category is promoted up the line. Recruiting DEFO's cuts one step in the stovepipe and frees up training resources for use elsewhere. But, unbelievably, the Company wants to pay suitably qualified and experienced DEFOs less than current FOs to allow them this flexibility, as well as most probably blowing out their time to command by increasing retirement age to 65 at the same time!
some aircrew are even leaving - three to start up their own operation in Oz I am reliably informed, (CX is obviously no longer the 'Holy Grail' of airline jobs that it once was if guys are leaving to start their own operation elsewhere..),The obvious injustices are there to see. What the Company and the AOA should do is sit down and negotiate, (really negotiate), a fairer deal while the opportunity still exists.

[routetuner]

But It Will Be Ok For You To Retire At 65 Will It?