Overtime threshold
 

This soon to be released NTC arrived at the desk of Wonkileaks from an unverified source.


Dear Pilots,

We feel sure that the recently implemented Absence Management and Sick Leave policy demonstrates our commitment to your well being. In a further demonstration of how committed we are to improving your well being we take great pleasure in announcing a further improvement to yours conditions of service.

Firstly a little bit of background. The Management team has been looking at further ways to stabilise your rosters and consequently manage fatigue, particularly for the Airbus and B744 rosters which has resulted in a lot of overtime and consequent increase in fatigue.

A decision was made to reach to the top tier of Cathay management for their advice and input.
This approach was made after some members of this management team viewed the interview of our CEO on Bloomberg TV following the announcement of our profit results. It is an interview we feel will find its way in to the curriculum of most business studies taught by the finest universities.
The reporter conducting the interview looked so obviously startled at her realisation that she was no match for the intellect of our CEO who graciously pointed out that despite our fuel hedging losses and future hedging position, cheap fuel is good for our airline.
We fuel sure that viewers of Bloomberg TV, many who are CEO s of major corporations, senior partners, financial controllers and otherwise considered to be reasonably intelligent must have also felt somewhat humbled on hearing an utterance from our CEO that can be considered as equal to any wisdom that came from the Biblical character of Solomon.
Our approach to our CEO was well received and he assured us that the issue of roster stability and fatigue minimisation was to be the number one priority for the airline as a whole. He pointed out that the finest strategic thinking minds are to be found in the fuel hedging team and now that fuel hedges have been taken out to 2018 to make our future earnings more predictable the hedging team could find the time to apply their not inconsiderable ability to this important matter.

We have been concerned for a long time with the link between fatigue and overtime. It is a proven concept that overtime leads to fatigue. Our crew controllers are charged with the duty to manage overtime closely in order to limit it. They have over the years been very effective at doing this, thus reducing your fatigue levels. Given the present industrial climate this has proved somewhat more difficult. It is no longer a simple matter to find volunteers on G days under the overtime threshold who are willing to take what otherwise would have been paid as overtime.

We are delighted to announce that effective the 1st of May and with the input of the highest level of Cathay management and the direction of the fuel hedging team your overtime threshold is now increased to 94 hours.

The link between overtime and fatigue has been broken. The hours between the previous overtime threshold of 84 hours and the new threshold of 94 hours are no longer considered to be overtime and therefore not as fatiguing as would have been the case had they been considered to be overtime.

Sometimes the best solutions are the ones that with hindsight seem so obvious.

We expect that this improvement will result in a 85% reduction of overtime and in resultant fatigue. After a trial period of 6 months we will consider further increase to the overtime threshold in order to further reduce fatigue. This is all designed with you and your welfare in mind.

This measure will help alleviate some of the fuel hedging losses and we expect that you will feel that the mitigation in fatigue inducing rosters will more than compensate for any monetary loss.
We further expect that this will in the future lead to a greater profit share which will be equally disbursed among all Cathay staff irrespective of level of responsibility and individual contribution to profitability. This is after all completely fair and fairness is a central pillar of our corporate ethos as it applies to employees.

This management team is thankful for the direction it has received and we feel sure other airlines will adopt this policy as it will now represent best practice.

Yours sincerely

The Management team

Well done Wonkileaks.....well done!

Never, ever! (no matter what they promise you!).

LOL. 10 bucks says the AOA reps who are so desperate to implement a PBS are more than happy to give up the 84hr threshold.

Just have a look what happened at EK, when overnight they shifted the overtime threshold from 78 hours to 92. It went from a great job to something a lot lot less than that.

I would only agree to 94 hours if they give us back the other half of the crew lounge they took.

No exceptions

Shirley you are not serious?
How about 72 hours and they can take away the whole damn thing?

Pbs is a concession

I'm not serious. But something tells me this pilot group will allow something just like it.

And don't call me Shirley

We must never ever ever ever give up 5-4-3...oh wait...nevermind.

You can thank Murray G for that one. What did we get? A Days.....oh wait.:ouch:

No, from memory Steve T was at the helm for 5-4-3, Murray gave us credit free reserve in return for A days and Paul W successfully brought in RA65 without 25 year housing and without bypass for those affected. But then again it really was the members who voted these changes in that are responsible isn't it?

...and W patterns...

...and let's not ever give up our 8 weeks leave ('94)
and 700 hours ('99?).

It all makes perfect sense now and how could I have been so blind as to question such a brilliant combination of productivity increasing measures.

I guess the new coffee is in actuality a tasty, cleverly engineered super caffeinated blend conceived by the fatigue management experts. I was wondering why we suddenly started carrying large stocks of Red Bull energy drinks as well.

Things ARE looking up !

Ok, let's review the history of the past 20 years:

- we have continually negotiated away some of the best aspects of our contracts

- the things we assumed we had 'gained', were then subsequently taken away arbitrarily by the company

- by default we ended up with NO gains, and the loss of all the valuable contract provisions

It is pretty obvious what we need to do: We need to categorically refuse to negotiate on ANY item we currently have, and instead fight to re-acquire the contract provisions that were 'stolen' from us.

A list of current items that MUST stay non-negotiable:

1) 84 hour overtime threshold
2) 42 days leave (for those who have it, and seek to obtain that for those who don't)
3) W-patterns

I'm sure many of you can think of other items to add to this list. It is beyond belief that we have lost 8 weeks leave, 5-4-3, A days etc. Forget 'negotiation'. We need to fight to get back what was taken. In future, we need to not be so naive and foolish.

And I can't believe our gross stupidity for allowing our few, meager winnings to be subject to "policy" rather than being injected into our COS.

Honest question here.. Thoughts on reducing the overtime threshold in exchange for a proportional reduction in base salary?

ref the comment from 777300ER: wtf??? so when business finally slows down, they can fly us less, pay us less, or...more cynically, if they don't "like" you, then can just keep you on a reduced roster and pay you less. great plan.

It isn't something I'm claiming would be a good idea. Simply posing the question here to discuss pros/cons. I ask because I can't help but to notice that whenever I talk to friends and acquaintances at other airlines with solid working rules and a more realistic work life balance, they almost always have significantly lower base thresholds. Seems there are two types of airlines. The likes of CX, EK, etc., with a fixed salary and a simplified model of maximising productivity at all costs, vs carriers like BA, AA, DL, UA, etc. all with lower minimum guarantee models.

The problem isn't that we gave away or exchanged things, it's how we went about it. One would hope we could learn from our mistakes and protect ourselves in future exchanges (fallback clauses, COS addendum, etc.).