CX Coming battle - Reality check
 

Gents. Battle isn't coming. Sabre rattling isn't battle; it never was.

Pre dating the 49ers was the often conveniently forgotten FAU Strike of '93. I was on the 'perfume picket line' outside company HQ at Kai Tak. The major crew industrial action that hugely impacted CX operations and very nearly brought the company to heel. At the time the pilots were also unhappy (talking of industrial action even in those days). As the strike action initially and effectively crippled operations there were rumours of the pilots belatedly joining the strike. With the pilots involved, the result would have most likely been very different.

Everyone was asking: "When will the pilots join, where are they?" For their own reasons (which of course can easily be guessed) they didn't engage; the rest is history gentlemen, its that simple. The company used all the usual fear tactics to successfully divide the FAU membership and crush the strike; amongst the fallout being terminations, disciplinary, colleague turned against colleague, yes ugly.

The main fallout though was that the company literally snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and in doing so knew that the the pilots would never take any meaningful industrial action. Armed with that knowledge the company has acted accordingly down the years. So don't allow your senior members telling you of previous valiant battles, it was only ever hot air with a little work to rule (contractual - zero risk - are we getting the picture, thrown in)

To effect change you sometimes have to risk something. For the youngsters - that's up to you and no shame if you don't as the whole tapestry of the industry has changed and precedents have been set.

Credit of course due to the 49ers but by then as you've read above, the company knew it could do as it pleased with just the normal sabre rattling. It was too late then and it has been ever since. At the one time when the universe was aligned in their favour, the Cathay pilots shied away and failed to engage.

Disappointed

Planeur
(Ex CX Kai Tak picket line)

P.S. Good luck to all CX staff in these difficult times.

I remember the '93 Cabin crew 'strike'.

Many didn't want to join and sneaked to work bypassing the picket line.

Among the CC fraternity lot of friendships ended.

The vast majority of crew started and supported the strike action. A minority circumvented picket lines and were able to crew a some flights. Fear followed as disciplinary action and bullying was rife. After a few weeks the trickle of strike breakers increased as fear set in as the strike slowly crumbled without support from pilots. Yes, obviously some friendships ended (I mentioned that) A lot has been previously written including university case studies which makes interesting reading. But I feel you've missed the point; If there was a time for the pilots to act, '93 was it and they didn't. Since then the management knew the pilot 'spineset' and acted accordingly. Not so ancient history.

P

Nevermind fighting, we vote down contract improvements these days.

The broken record strikes again.
STW, if you insist on repeating your same old message again and again, I’ll repeat the majority’s response again and again:
Clause 7 would have rendered those “improvements” useless the day after the vote and we wouldn’t have been better off than we are now. On the contrary.

Now you are going to tell me that I don’t know that, but neither do you and that doesn’t seem to stop you from repeating the same old ****e ad infinitum.

Get over it already! You are the whiniest baby in CX. I swear it is all you talk about, here and on the flight deck. Get a life. Grow a pair. You don’t like the CX pilot group and how they vote? Leave or man up and lead with your “better” ideas. Next time we fly together (which hopefully is never), I’m done being nice. You are the worst. You don’t deserve to sit in that RHS. I would rather fly with the fake, no nothing, baby pilots on CoS18 than share space with you.

Really Clause 7?? The one that is exactly the same as most western worlds labour laws. So we want a Western World contract but we dont want to abide by their kind of laws. Good luck of every getting a contract with that kind of mentality.

lWow. You sound like fun to fly with! Anyone on CoS18 should treat you like a god should they. What a piece of work you are. You are a perfect example of why CX should die a death and be reborn in the ashes as a Phoenix.

Perhaps you misunderstand the job, mine isn’t to be “fun” for you to fly with. Grow up... This isn’t a Harry Potter fantasy for you. People have lives and families affected by this. Your pipe dream is immature and irrelevant.

Which was the very concern with Clause 7. It was designed to be used in conjunction with first world labor laws in agreements with unions who have the power to negotiate collective agreements. In Hong Kong there is no collective bargaining, we’re all on individual contracts and the local labor laws don’t support first world agreements.

That’s not to say Clause 7 should have been a deal breaker. It simply should have been explained better and adjusted as required to better represent the reality of Hong Kong’s labor laws and a skeptical pilot body who’d seen colleagues sacked when the company used contractural loop holes. Unfortunately we were dealing with a DFO and GMA who were never here in 2001. Our rotational management policy is why this company routinely fails to learn from its mistakes nor understand the mindset of those that suffered as a result of the mistakes.

That being said, we can argue hypotheticals all day, and I will. I’d suggest we’d hardly be worse off today if we’d voted in TA16.

You are absolutely correct that your job isn't to be "fun" to fly with, but it is your job to manage a coherent team and fostering an effective environment for task sharing, threat and error management...etc Quite frankly you sound like someone who seems to think it's a single pilot operation and loses the crew from the very minute you show up at dispatch.
There's no doubt that experience in the cockpit is vital for safety, but I would say it's equally dangerous when you have a senior pilot who shows nothing but utter contempt to junior crew, the type of cockpit gradient that results in no-one willing to engage in the operation and speak up.

I was told a long time ago that part of the assessment process of selecting pilots was an easy thought process of "Can I sit next to this person for 6+ hours?". Judging by your comments on here and your attitude towards junior crew, I can only assume that years of cx have soured your character, or that you were an excellent actor.

Fatty has a point

from DimSum daily.

Cathay Pacific to reduce salary for employees across the board between 20%-30% tomorrow

https://www.dimsumdaily.hk/cathay-pa...-L1IJq09AH_SbA

Unless a persons' postings involved direct and very personal public attacks on someone (which I think never appropriate) one of the last things I'd do is draw character conclusions from the musings of a person in a semi-anonymous Internet forum. One way or another. All you can get is some ideas that might be running through an individuals mind at the time and it doesn't even need to be real.

Interesting, but there is a notable upwards percentage change in daily pax counts through the worlds airports. Although still painfully small numbers, there is a definite trend towards much healthier passenger counts. It would seem to me that the opportune moment for CX to attack their staff is coming to an end. The change is exponential in nature, so I predict a reasonable recovery by years end. Probably the end of next year however before we are back to relatively "normal" numbers. I am sure CX will be restoring any cuts they impose at that time. :rolleyes:

The world will just be starting it’s second lockdown in September. Relaxing it again in November and then starting it up again in January. This won’t even be close to normality by the years end. My own opinion of course.

If we lock down again we have learned nothing from this economic disaster. I think there are large portions of the world's population who won't have the stomach for two or three more doses of "the cure". Test and trace, protect the at risk populations. Take this time to develop a better plan for the fall.

Agreed. Money talks and people are losing boat loads of it at the moment. Eventually life will carry on regardless of Covid, because people need to eat. The governments can't keep printing money forever so life and the economy will go on.

The operation was successful but the patient is dead. Time to get some common sense in place instead of this virus mania madness

There will be no second lockdown. Most population centers are thoroughly fed up with being dictated to by people who have usually proven themselves incompetent at running everything and anything. Trying to lock down people and business's a second time would see a much different response from those affected. Especially in the USA. Perhaps here in the UK the Govt would have more success, as most of the citizens have taken on the qualities of sheep...so who knows.