Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific cabin crew union threatens work-to-rule action on Lunar New Year in ultimatum to management over demands for more rest time, manpower boost
The cabin crew union of Hong Kong’s flagship carrier Cathay Pacific Airways on Friday issued an ultimatum to management that it would not rule out taking industrial action over Lunar New Year if its concerns were not addressed. The 3,000-strong Cathay Pacific Airways Flight Attendants Union said it had only met management three times this year, but bosses had not addressed their concerns about adequate rest and manpower issues.
“The FAU has raised serious concerns about cabin crew exhaustion and passenger well-being, but since Cathay management has refused to act, we have no choice but to resort to industrial action,” union vice-chairwoman Grace Siu Wing-yan said. “We want to avoid restrictions over Lunar New year. It is entirely avoidable if Cathay agrees to address our reasonable and rational concerns.” The union has warned staff cuts could impact customer safety as crew “may be unable to adequately respond to inflight emergencies”.
Last week the union said members at an emergency meeting earlier this month had unanimously agreed to support a decision to implement a “work-to-rule” industrial action, but did not give a time frame of when it would begin. In an internal email seen by the Post and confirmed by the union, members were asked to “strictly” follow company policies, rules and standards and ensure the “work-to-rule” was enforced at all airports. It also asked members to reject requests to work on their rest days and only fly when they felt “100 per cent fit”.
The group is demanding fair roster arrangements, guaranteed minimum layover periods on overseas outports, regular meetings with the union, boosting of staff numbers on flights and a review of contracts. Cathay has promised to establish a focus group in January to make the roster system more transparent for employees, while special allowances would be given to staff working on Christmas, New Year’s Day and Lunar New Year. The union received unanimous endorsement from more than 90 participants who attended an emergency general meeting on December 6 – alongside additional proxy votes from more than 1,000 members – to proceed with possible future actions, including labour strikes, if needed. The group did not, at the time, rule out Christmas and Lunar New Year holidays.
A new rostering system was introduced last year, with the union on Friday saying that flight duties had not been distributed in a “fair manner”, adding some members had complained that the January roster had shown no improvement.
The basic monthly salary for Cathay’s junior cabin crew members is HK$9,100 (US$1,167), with wages boosted by allowances earned from long-haul flights.
Since January, there has been at least one less cabin crew member on flights.
Cathay last month was operating at just 27 per cent of pre-pandemic passenger flight capacity, while cargo was at 64 per cent. In an effort to defuse tensions, the airline announced eligible Hong Kong-based staff would get an increase of 3.3 per cent in average basic salary as well as the equivalent of one month’s pay as an ex gratia payment in January.
The union said when the company shed a record 5,900 jobs in October 2020, after axing regional airline Cathay Dragon and offering new contracts, cabin crew salary dropped by about 20 per cent.
Cathay said it was on track to reach a third of pre-pandemic passenger capacity by the end of this year, and operate at 70 per cent of the overall flight capacity before the Covid-19 crisis by the end of next year.
The airline earlier said it expected to recruit more than 4,000 frontline employees, including 700 pilots and 2,000 cabin crew members, to meet travel demand over the next 18 to 24 months. It added that a cabin crew recruitment drive in October had drawn about 1,000 applications. The union estimated the number of cabin crew had plummeted from 11,000 before 2020 to about the current 5,800.
SCMP
