Selfish & Stupid

[Captain White]

:mad:

Here you go again !!!

Nobody answered my question posted 2 months ago .....

"How many CX Pilots have turned down upgrades or commands?"

None of course, surprise, surprise :D

All of you expect guys and gals looking for a start in airline life to suffer the consequences of your inept Union behaviour at AOA. But do any of you already at CX carry your share of the burden.

I truely hope that all of those suffering through this pointless posturing at CX can see trought to the other side..... as I sure can't !!!

:confused: Good Luck ! I think you are going to need it !

[Piz Buin]

Well put, pull the pin or get stuck in guys! All the upgraders are doing is setting the standard for the new guys...well done :(

[BanBreaker]

I couldn’t agree more

Nothing but selfish, pathetic behaviour being shown by world class aviators!

It’s a dam shame!


:mad:

[HotDog]

Dam Busters?:D

[Cpt. Underpants]

"Nothing but selfish, pathetic behaviour being shown by world class AIRLINE MANAGERS!"

Rubs both ways brother. They started it. They can end it. They choose not to.

[shortly]

'They started it' rather sums up the child like mentality at the AOA - don't you think.

[Obsolete Observer]

So shortly, YOUR solution is..........?

[tone-uncage-fire]

Apparently the official term is Replacement Worker...... and Scab is not AOA parlance:

If so, what happens in September when the total number of new joiners exeeds 51?

Without getting into the old debate about upgrades doing the replacing...... after the 1st 51 new guys/gals surely there is no more 'replacing' being done?

1. Is a new term required?
2. Could one approach the AOA and request not to be termed as such? Maybe IFALPA would hear your case...esp if you have been a card carrying ALPA member for say 10 yrs.
3. What becomes the basis for the ban or the terminology?
4. Does number 52 get let off the hook because his date of birth was later than the rest on his course?
5. What is the end state that the AOA seeks from this ban? (Talks or reinstatement?)
6. Are the Replacement Workers a 49er issue or simply an extension of 'work to rule'/MSS and therefore a rostering/COS issue?

........... just wondering if we cant see the wood for the trees.

Dont bite my head off...these are genuine questions which no one in the AOA has been able to answer for me?

Edited for shocking grammar!

[shortly]

Change the Committee, stop all industrial action, cancel the ban and go back to the table. Fat chance hey.

[nudger]

*

[shortly]

1. If the AOA were ever silly enough to publish a list of names, called whatever they wish, the resultant opportunity for litigation would have all the blood sucking lawyers in Hong Kong licking their lips.
2. Certainly worth a try, I'm sure IFALPA are sorry they supported the ban in the first place.
3. The basis for the ban is non-supportable, sad as it is all the 49ers had their contracts terminated legally, nothing to do with D&G.
4. The reasons for the selection of the 49ers have been kept very closed, this is normal for CX.
5. Before the 49ers who really knows, after the 49ers, well now they have a windmill to tilt at.
6. Was instituted after the 49ers but did not apply to union members taking the jobs of the 49ers only new guys.

[middle]

The AOA will announce shortly that the ban is over. Despite all the advice taken from USALPA/IALPA/IFALPA/IPA and various others, they have decided that SHORTLY and his little band of management cohorts have a far better idea of what to do and how to run the campaign.

The ban stands, like it or not. All parties involved will have to live with that.

[crazy_max]

What ban?

[Kubota]

Try not to be a "Richard Cranium" all your life, shorty. CX management DID start it. They can end it (if they wanted to) TOMORROW. Clearly, they have no intention of doing so. What incentive is there? I think the only time they will come to their collective senses is when the law courts order them to do so. That day is coming...

Back to your cubicle, fool.

[BanBreaker]

O.K don’t talk to me , not this trip , nor the next trip , nor the trip after , or the trip after the that , and in a months time don’t talk to me on that trip either.

Boring for me? WELL HELL YEAH!! BUT!! Just as boring for you too and just as frustrating.

It’s not going to work, I need this job for more reasons than you need to know, lets try another stance , let me into the union I’ll pay my 5% to assist the 49’ers and I’ll work to the rule and I’ll do what ever it takes for the cause, but to hurt additional fellow aviators is just not the way to do business.

We’re all the same breed , with the same love of flying.

Stop being so selfish an cruel.

[shortly]

Obviously name calling and childish insults are a sensible riposte for attempted debate. Better to be a RC than a sheep or an ostrich. Cx management started it, what a joke. This belated attempt by the AOA to show gumption is destined for disaster, they should have shown more fortitude years ago. By fortitude I don't mean industrial clout I mean industrial nous. I have said previously and I re-iterate there have been offers made by the company which should have been taken up. This situation, ie the 49ers, is the direct result of union intransigence. On another post I quoted the miners union after Scargill left - the union should take the best offer available through negotiation before an offer is forced upon it.

[tone-uncage-fire]

Morally the company are wrong in sacking the 49ers but their right to do so, outside D'nG, is in our COS.

I dont understand your point Kubota. They maybe w@nkers but they didnt break the letter of the law.

I am more than willing to help fund the 49ers/AOA and try to take the company to court but if they fail, they lose...thats it. Over and out. Stomping our feet and shaking our fists year in year out has done squat.

Furthermore, if the company didnt break any rules (technically) then why victimise new joiners with a ban 13+months later?

The most bizarrely correct thing you said is "why should they". Indeed! The company is prospering....they really dont give a to$$ about the AOA at the moment. New chariots on order, recruiting going well, unexpected profits for the shareholders (at the expense of 16,000 13mth bonuses!).

Our come back is more shaking of the fists; a 10th year of threatening to strike.....but they know we never will. We never have walked the walk have we? JT sleeps very soundly me thinks.

Finally if it comes to the crunch and knowing that they can fire us, legally, by DHL parcels....... who will actually strike IF the AOA ordered it?

Sadly the 400 non-union members and soon to 250 odd 'replacement workers' are going to be your achilles heel...... a weakness of our own making.

Im sick of all this posturing and bravado....and Im sick of a few ******s threatening our new joiners. You simply cant find anyone useful to bully.

Drop the silly ban. Take the extra 3million in subscriptions and take management to court with a united pilot body.

The AOA is an essential part of our lives and we have alot to thank past committees for; we still do have a pretty good wicket here thanks to the AOA.

What would scare management the most, I believe, is a united pilot body not this fractionalised 3 ring circus we have now. Divided we shall fail and the ban divides us more each day.

Im off on leave..... bye.

[FlexibleResponse]

Make him the new DFO instead?

[ironbutt57]

tone-uncage-fire....very nice balanced post....unfortunately wasted on the likes of KaptinM and FrankG and let's not forget Kubota....wonder which continent they're from?..mmmm easy guess that one...:D :D :rolleyes:

[VR-HFX]

Nudger

You may well recall the talks about talks and the AOA stance late last year.

There was a publicly stated position to put the 49er issue to one side to try and move forward. The reality is the 49er issue has always been front and centre and the major sticking point in all the jousting that has gone on over the past 13 months.

Without settling this issue nothing moves forward, so let's get real.

I repeat again my strongly held view that the AOA has seriously insulted the intelligence of not just Hughes-Hallett, Turnbull, Chen, Tyler, Barley and Rhodes but also Sir Adrian Swire, who, at the end of the day, still calls the shots. Cathay Pacific is his baby and he feels that the pilot body has mutinied. One may question the way management has tried to take away that which they readily gave but it is still their train set.

Progress can only be made by acknowledging this fact, apologising and moving on.

I personally think the way the 49 plus were dealt with was childish and vindictive but in order for the AOA to be an advocate it must acknowledge the primacy of owners and play to their benevolence rather than their pettiness.

The current AOA leadership has put themselves in a position that they cannot take this course of action.

Pride has its price and at the moment it is a price management and the shareholders can afford.

[Kubota]

So butt-boy

Where am I from then?

I don't recall telling you, the geriatric (or anyone else) that a post was "lost on me". Don't presume to speak for me.

As you purport to know all, please enlighten us all with your eloquence, wit and intelligence on this "where I'm from" stuff...blah blah blah Cathay this Cathay that AOA this, AOA that, blah blah blah, malcontents this malcontents that...

Listen up sphincter boy

YOU ARE BORING

Get it? Got it. GOOD.

[Ramboflyer]

CX has approached United and US air over direct entry Pilots and especially if industrial action begins.

[shortly]

Ooh good stir Rambo.

[Plastique]

One year on and still going nowhere.
Mr Findlay has to justify the 5% subs that the union suckers are paying, meanwhile back at the ranch the sensible are voting with their feet.

No point in the AOA pointing to stateside and the MASSIVE settlements in AA UAL etc.. Chapter 11 indeed.


Hong Kong is Hong Kong.
Expat life is the same everywhere.
Do your job. Take the money. Play it by their rules.
Make hay while the sun shines.
Remember that we're guests here, and being paid substantially more than we would be in the UK/Europe, in a very tax favourable environment.

Nobody is forcing people to stay here, no-one owes anyone at CX a job.

GET REAL WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE.

[KaptinZZ]

Plastique,

You're right on the button!!

As an outsider in their environment, whoever 'they' may be, you play by their rules. If you don't want the job, there is somebody who does. End of story.

I don't agree that it should be so, and I believe in union representation, but they have the $200M+ aeroplanes, not the employees.

I recall a friend back in 89 saying to the AFAP 'You buy me an A320 to fly, and you have me forever.' Different circumstances from the dispute in HK, but if anything, the HK pilots are in a worse position because they are foreigners in somebody else's country.

[Plastique]

Sitting in any gwailo bar in HK you will find that the same holds for the majority of HK expats.
Since the handover broadly speaking you have mainly (in no particular order) teachers, engineers, geologists, pilots and financial services.
There is a game which needs to be played, and lets face it in a lot of workplaces (the aircraft is no different) resentment simmers below the surface.

Ok picture the scenario:
You work for a UK company.
You company has a policy of recruiting Chinese nationals into the top positions, and makes a token effort at training locals to do those jobs, albeit at lower terms and conditions.
They are flown in on over twice your salary, and paid your salary again in housing allowances.
The live in enclaves in the most desirable parts of town.
They don't speak any english.
They continually take the **** out of British culture.
Their kids are sent back to China at the companys cost to be privately educated.
(and on and on)
How would you treat your privileged co-workers?
Particularly if they were continually posturing for more pay and better conditions.

Most of us here came for the money, and the opportunities that money affords.
CX is a stable airline, its come through the last 2 crises fighting, and has the backing of the deep pockets of the Swire empire.

You could brand be as selfish, but I'm not the type of person who will adopt the flock mentality and jeopardise my continued wellbeing for grieveances that the union (I'm not a member of any union) tell me I have.

I think that there are some among us who need to step back from the steaming rhetoric and have a long hard think about where this thing is going, and the motives of those perpetuating the "action".

[Abbeville]

Plastique

Fascinating post and highly readable.

Your intelligence and attitude to the job are clearly worthy of the Swire Star for Compliant Staff Award.

Clearly you are the sort of person that won't mind in the slightest being selected for the next batch of 49ers even tho' you haven't committed any sin?

I am not sure where you are coming from suggesting that expats spend time running down the locals. I find that suggestion grossly inaccurate and quite frankly exceptionally offensive. It has taken the 'expat' nearly 100 years to get to this level of safety in civil aviation.By hiring in the expertise, and being prepared to make haste slowly, the local aviation community will be the ultimate winners. I wish them well in their endeavours.

I would look again at that coffee you are drinking mate.....it has been spiked. Enjoy your weekend on the junk/cocktail party.

[jtr]

Plastique, if they were paid similar packages to their home country, plus obvious "expat" allowances, and if they were the only ones who could do it, then I suppose I would just have to live with it!!

[Plastique]

Abbeville,
I just grin and bear it, take the money and bank it.

Swire compliant, give me a break... I'm as bitter and twisted as anyone here, but I know what side my bread is buttered.

I worked at a UK airline (flying coke cans) for a number of years, and I took the same sh!te for half the money.

I've come home many times after banging my head against a brick wall due to the STUPIDITY in how the company is managed.
I've even stuck my neck out on a many occasions to suggest "better" ways of doing things.

I was strongly advised by my management that it was in my interest to keep my ideas to myself.

Don't think that I've got my head up my ****, lets get real, the money is good, expat t&c's are on the slide worldwide (check out Emirates), so I'm happy to milk it for as long as it lasts, and retire 10 years earlier than would be possible previously by virtue of my well deployed ill-gotten gains.

BTW before you ask, I'm not one of the "replacement staff" I've been in HK well before contract compliance :-)

[cunningham]

I agree with Plastique. If you don't like the way the company treats you.....LEAVE. Go home.

Problem solved.

[shortly]

Plastique, you called it like you see it. good for you. I think Abbeville is the one not calling it as it is. I have been an embarassed witness to numerous incidents of racist language, behaviour etc by the expats or their kin, particularly wives. P will not be added to the list of 49ers, and they were all chosen for a reason/s, none were randomly selected. Yes I feel sorry for them but in many cases they know why but won't say. I agree with Plastique also in this, how many of us have bothered to learn the local language? Not many and even less have learnt to read/write in the language. This situation would not be tolerated in our home countries.