Just a heads up so some can make plans CXORCIST.. But then if you want to come off as the guy with the biggest dick at CX, "so be it"

So basically, the 500 COS18 guys, the most junior in the Company, won't be made redundant.

this company does not lack imagination when it comes to screwing up their staff. Absolutely disgusting.

More likely, they just lost the protection of LIFO.
Expect the senior guys (>55 years old captains) on POS18 to be screwed.

The other COS still retain the LIFO clause so can't be messed with.

it means they don’t get 6 months redundancy payment. Cheaper to make them redundant.

What if you issue a fire all and sign COS18? If redundancies now have to be made, your dearly earned number on the list is now worth nothing.

The reason I say that is because amendments on COS18 don’t affect anyone else except the few guys that are on it at the bottom, and it is clear the company is not interested in retrenching people on that contract.

The 500 COS18 are the Co's. Future and cheaper.. Why get rid?

One more reason to not sign anything.
If they fire everyone to only cherry pick who they want back, that's cleary a circumvention of your contract. They can expect a long legal battle.

Don't forget we have more than second officers on cos18.
All the recent and future extendees are / will be on it.
​​​​​​They are happy with them on cos18... Until they are not.

Disappointing that this was surruptitiously done on a weekend.

Because there are 1000's of guys that have served CX loyally for a much longer time providing safe, reliable and efficient service to their employer.

Well, according to a friend of mine in management, what they don't want is to get rid of any 747 pilot.

Make what you want from that...

If COS18 is forced on everyone via a sign or be fired, people can choose to not sign it and take their statutory redundancy.

If you do sign it, you will no longer enjoy LIFO protection based on seniority/redundancy lists. That being said the monetary incentive disappears for firing the senior and experienced, so those guys would very likely keep their employment.

So technically, for the company, it can be done. It would just require very very bold actions on their part. The crap part is we would all either end up unemployed or on a much worse contract, the good part is more people could remain employed.

Am I missing something?

Yes, what you are missing is that if you don't feel coercised into signing a new contract, they can't make you redundant unless they've made all pilots junior to you redundant.

But if you want to volunteer to sign pos18, be my guest, ask your chief pilot. I am sure your efforts will be appreciated and well rewarded.

What exactly did they do? I can't even see COS 18 on crew direct as I am not on that contract...

Yup. Exactly, Zapp. And the other thing is that the company has contracts in jurisdictions where it cannot be easily modified (certainly not without the consent of the contractees). Seniority is the most clear cut thing in the contract and it's literally in black and white. So in some of those areas it requires layoff in reverse seniority order with definitive pay protection for those laid off in any case according to their contract. And those contracts are enforceable through the grievance process and/or court.

And it's not like the company could shut the base with the intent to dodge this responsibility on an existing contract. If this scenario occurred it almost certainly would go to court and relevant inter-company comms subpoenaed. Kind of like defrauding the residents of a town and then skipping town (with some type of store still in that town and a business in other towns). The officials would go after your store in that town and you certainly couldn't do business there anymore--and may well be able to attach assets from other towns to the debt.

In fact, given that the company has been paying taxes in the US for a degree of work performed there even for HKG based pilots, this might be one avenue for even those aggrieved there to pursue relief.

Like I said the contract is clear. If they want to furlough out of seniority they will have to pay those with seniority to allow this to happen (and the only real way to do it on some of the collective agreements would be to pay those individuals what they believed to be a reasonable sum to voluntarily leave or take a temporary hiatus). Or they will go to arbitration/court and lose anyway.

Well the question isn’t really about me and I am most definitely not jumping to sign away anything. It was a genuine question: if they give everyone notice, and then offer COS18, what exactly is it we could do about it? I’m also talking about HKG here because I don’t know how anything works at the bases.

If the alternative to signing is taking redundancy they could well still follow the LIFO principle in the contracts. The person on the list before you that signs disappears from that list, if they don’t sign they also disappear from the list because of being made redundant, so when your number is up they are not firing out of seniority. That’s what I meant and it’s a genuine question.

That would mean that someone junior would voluntarily take redundancy so that someone senior could remain on their contract as opposed to signing COS18 and remaining employed. It is a highly undesirable scenario, but it seems it would be the only legal way to circumvent redundancies outside of seniority.

Is there anything that can actually prevent this from happening?

yes you can - it’s on Crew Direct under Flight Crew People Services. But I’ll summarise for you:

yesterday they sneaked in a new version of COS18 eff 16/5/20. A couple of minor tweaks but the REALLY interesting bit is that there is no redundancy clause in the new version, whereas it warranted an entire section in the previous version...

Problem would be the first time they involuntarily made someone redundant of greater seniority while retaining someone of lesser they've violated the contract. Could they attempt to terminate ALL contracts in HKG ? Meh..... what they are doing is in practice trying to evade a legitimate and binding contract and that'd be up to the courts in HKG.

Now one thing that might be able to help is if by doing things that way in HKG it adversely affected someone on a base in some way (at least in a forum where the contract is actionable under law). And they could show that the way HKG was doing things violated the redundancy provision of their CA/EA/CBA and had harmed them with a future contract or upgrade opportunity in some way (for example if HKG terminated the contract in HKG, forced everyone onto POS18 or whatever, then shut the base and forced returnees onto POS18 you could certainly demonstrate that the entire shebang was deliberately done to evade the redundancy provisions of the original EA/CA/CBA on the base and take it for legal action in the based country).

Considering the costs if I were the company I'd make some sort of very attractive voluntary option to stay out of the quagmire. And/Or follow the contract exactly as written and furlough (with stipulated pay protection) as it's delineated in reverse seniority order. But I ain't them.

Slasher. One thing I can certainly dissuade you of is the idea they will be offering an "attractive" redundancy package. Not going to happen.

COS18
 

Then I would expect that the HKAOA would have copies of the previous edition (dated previous to 16/5/20) and the newly minted version would then only apply to those hired "after" the latest amendment.. Copies of "previous" version should of course be forwarded to AOA AND CX legal council for safe keeping...