HKAOA FORUM & DIALOG, Help?

[crewsunite]

:confused: Can anyone from HKAOA GC tell me where your private forum has gone.
Are you guys really a white elephant? :\ You need to show leadership in such a time like this. Look at AA they getting the best men in the business to neg for them in there latest 53 % pay rise. (Funny one thing is to get the company to pay for union costs) Wow! I wish I had a green card. Must get great relaxing with the family knowing things to been taken care of.. :ugh:

Oh no here we’re watching our backs.. & It's getting very dangerous for us out here trying too handle these heavy emotions. :rolleyes:
We have faith in you the to take care of our needs.

But little gets done not even options for a way forward.
Action come on now! C scale is round the corner & KA is in a mess.

We are all taking the law into our own hands.
Some playing along the lines on One Airline one Pay scale!
Others making $ by working G days & screwing others overtime.
What a f..king circus. :p

Come on Guys who's going to lead us into 2008 & pull things together?:confused:

Look! If we getting screwed now, what the hells going to happen in yrs time when there (& it will happen) is a down cycle. God help us, run! :bored: Unfortunately there will be nowhere to run too.

So, we had better straighten things out ASAP or we more junior crew should start looking. Do it now while the iron is hot for another career airline.
Things here are all screwed up nothing like winner the lottery & getting robbed / rooted up the arse & told to smile about it.

Crazy world hey.. :{

[SMOC]

Let the DPA take control! :E

[Frogman1484]

I Agree. The HKAOA has done nothing.

ST Wake up mate :ugh:, the pilot body is expecting you to start doing something. And please do not come out with " we are trying to keep management happy and on side". Or we are currently doing something but cannot tell you!!! Trust me Management is not trying to keep us on side.

Please do not wait for next year to start negotiating for another 4% as NR is preparing to give...now is the time to start demanding a few things like currency protection. Put the pressure on now while they are putting out KA fires.

What happened to the rest of the figures from the package comparison with other airlines...Release the lot!!! Let the membership look at the figure and then decide if CX is still the way forward.

[slapfaan]

The HKAOA has done nothing.

Frogman...this might come as a surprise...but the HKAOA GC is only a smokescreen!!
The GC is actually run by CX management itself.The only reason for their existance is to make the pilot body "feel good" and to give some guys hope that they have a bargaining tool..

If you don't believe this and want to keep on happily paying your monthly subscriptions, why not suggest this to other members:

"Instruct the GC to demand an immediate pay-rise from CX,say around 50% to start with,as well as a list of some other demands such as being rostered for DUTY days to sort out visas and medicals..instead of using YOUR G-days for these.."

See what their reaction will be...see their true colours:ooh:!!!

As mentioned on these forums,they are running around trying to put out fires everywhere..so why not light another (BIG) one and see them dance!!

The wheels (that are about to fall off) are still turning..and the pace is picking up!!!;)

[water check]

Steve. It's time to start communicating with the membership. At the very least, release the data that was used during the COS 08 negotiations.

[BScaler]

Steve,

Yes, I would like to know, on behalf of all junior officers who make up the majority of CX aircrew, as well as the majority of the AOA membership, why you are not representing their best interests.

I am getting the feeling that the AOA GC is being held hostage by senior A-Scale VPs who refuse to see the impact that CoS 08 will have on the careers of our junior colleagues, and who consider their own circumstances above those they have been elected to represent.

Any attempt to have the plight of junior officers heard is simply labelled 'A-Scale bashing'. I believe that by contrast, the treatment the AOA is dealing out to our junior guys is nothing short of 'junior officer bashing'.

There has been no acknowledgement by the AOA that for junior officers, CoS 08 will mean:

longer time to command in the event of an industry slowdown - and we work in a cyclical industry. You cannot guarantee 10 more years of unbridled growth, so you must plan for contingencies to deal with a possible slowdown. There are win-win proposals that the AOA has not considered;
less chances of a base vacancy upon attaining command with more senior guys remaining on bases;
lesser conditions for New Joiners. When B-Scales were introduced it was only a year later before A-Scalers found, (as a result of COSAP 94 - remember?), that the Company reneged on its promise to leave A-Scalers alone and implemented many of the B-Scale CoS on them also. If we blindly accept lesser conditions for our New Joiner colleagues, it'll be us next. Learn from history.The silence from the AOA is deafening - especially for junior officers. I can understand completely why a junior officer would not be compelled to join an organisation that patently fails to represent them, and worse, contains some representatives that promote what the Company has basically dictated to them as an agreement worthy of consent.

Some junior officers are already leaving the Company to return to previous jobs, go elsewhere, or even to start up their own businesses. They clearly see their interests as being better served elsewhere. Might I remind those in the AOA GC that one of the principal aims of the association is: To protect and further the interests of the Aircrew Profession and to safeguard and improve the interests and rights of Members of the Association. Agreeing to CoS 08 is clearly to fail in this aim for junior officers who make up the majority of the membership.

Ideally we should be directing our efforts toward the Company in trying to obtain a better agreement, and making it clear, in no uncertain terms, that CoS 08 is not acceptable to the majority of the AOA membership.

No communication has been forthcoming from the AOA to explain their position publicly. The silence can only be interpreted as collusion with the Company in promoting this flawed agreement.

So, Steve, you are familiar with the way the negotiations went and the issues involved - tell the membership where the upside is in this agreement. I'll be happy to provide a point-by-point rebuttal.

But don't drag your heels - there remains only two months before CoS 08 is implemented.

[Numero Crunchero]

It will be a longer time to command regardless of any aviation industry cyclicality! Command time is likely to be 13-20 years - 13 years if the recent high growth rate is maintained, 20 years if the growth rate of the 90s is applicable.

As there are no AOA updates forthcoming I thought I might write some stuff for general consumption. Please bear in mind these are my thoughts and my thoughts alone...they do not represent GC opinion.

Some history

B scales were introduced on 1st April 1993 at a level 39% below the prevailing A scales. Management thinking of the time was that A scales had risen too far and that a more market driven salary was needed. You would logically assume, therefore, that A scales would have remained static whilst B scales enjoyed inflationary payrises until the scales merged!

After the decision to introduce B scales, however, A scales enjoyed payrises in 1993-1996 totaling in excess of 24%. In this same time period, B scales received pay rises in excess of 28%. For a 1st year FO from 1993-1996, the A scale increased by over $15,000 whilst the B scale rate increased by just under $12,000. So whilst A scales increased at almost the same percentage rate, they obviously increased more in nominal terms.

The Company made the decision to do away with the collective contract in place at that time, leave current serving Officers on their current pay and CoS, and offer inferior pay and CoS to New Joiners only. It is important to note that just over a year later COSAP 94 was imposed on A-Scalers, in which the six weeks leave of the B-Scale CoS was incorporated.

The lesson seems to be that to accept the situation where lesser pay and CoS are offered to New Joiners only, thinking that ‘I’m alright Jack’, is to invite the same upon ourselves eventually. It is also to invite inevitable future industrial discord amongst our future colleagues. As with 1993, the introduction of an inferior CoS for new joiners has a payrise attached for current employees!

Where we are today

The HKG B scale, as of 1/1/08, will be on par (in nominal terms) with A scale salaries of 1992. From Jan 08, the HKG B scale would need a 28 % pay rise to catch up to where A scales were 12 years ago. For A scalers it would take payrises of between 7 and 29%, dependant on base, to return to previous pay scales. The pay gap between the most senior B scaler and his one month senior A scale peer is over 22% - that is for HKG based with both on the new PF. If you take into account the old PF for the A scaler, the disparity is far greater. So after 14 years and 9 months the pay disparity has been reduced from 39% to 22%!

Joiners on the C(UFO) scale will be on terms approximately 20-30% (base dependent) lower than their peers who joined by the end of this year. The last time the company employed a ‘same work, different pay’ paradigm was 1993. It seems the saying ‘history doesn’t repeat, but it plays a familiar tune’ is apt here. A new joiner on CoS08 will be on the same nominal salary as a B scale FO1 in 1995, in the case of an Australian basing.

The moniker “C scale” seems aptly applied to UFO scales!

Latest pay imposition

According to GMA’s figures (in his update of 8 Oct), HKG based B scale CNs will receive payrises of between 5.0 and 8.3%. Let’s look at that. According to figures reported by DFO, the average number of hours flown (in 2006) was around 680. Add in 84 credit leave hours and another 20hrs for simulators and ground school and you end up with around 780hrs. This equates to around 65 credit hours per month. Add another 5 hrs for factoring etc and the average HDP payrise is around 0.6% on 2007 figures.

The most senior B scaler is around SCN4. This rank has ‘enjoyed’ a grade increase of 1% (5*0.2%). This B scaler will enjoy a payrise of around 4.6% whilst a brand new B scale Captain will receive a payrise of around 3.6%. This is much lower than the quoted range of 5.0-8.3%. It will be another 12 years, when the most senior B scaler reaches SCN 17, before any B scale CN gets the payrise at the upper end quoted by GMA.


CX needs DEFOs

The Company requires a huge number of DEFOs from the US and Australia and is hoping to pay freighter pay to secure them. These officers will be earning around 30% less than their based B-Scale peers and at salaries pitched to levels not seen for over a decade. Cathay Pacific’s actions of the past have shown that once a new scale is introduced the previous pay scale enjoys pay rises that continue for the first few years and then cease. Then when there is any economic crisis, the lower paid scales justify a pay cut to the incumbent scales, as happened in 1999.

[crewsunite]

:ok: NC for President

Oh my :hmm: What the hell are RN PW & ST doing:{
We are really wasting time here guys..
AOA GC the pilot body are doing / going to take law into there own hands.

Mangagement - Don't let that happend is just wasts time & money. etc

Give us the 30% raise & employ all pilots out there (because end 08 there will not be any) & get all 40 B777 to HK ASAP.

You can always get rid on some B747 & B744 etc.. while there prices are still high.

NC that's great! Bring all figures out from early 90's & give them stick!!
Bring it on. :D Has anyone said Thank you. Well done you are very professional indeed.