Cathay pilots set to back industrial action

Cathay Pacific pilots vote on industrial action on Wednesday

By CNN's Kirsty Alfredson

HONG KONG, China -- Pilots with Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific airline say they will meet Wednesday to vote on whether to take industrial action in July that would send summer holiday travel plans into a tailspin.

The Hong Kong Aircrew Officers Association General Secretary John Findlay told CNN it was likely the pilots would vote at its extraordinary general meeting in favor of industrial action.

"The indications we have from speaking to members, from the communications we've been getting in our office is that a very large number of pilots will be voting at the meeting and the feeling we get is that an overwhelming majority of those pilots will vote for the industrial action to commence on the first of July," he said.

VIDEO CNN's Lian Pek speaks to the Hong Kong Aircrew Officers Assocation's John Findlay Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

Hong Kong's Labour Department mediated talks on Monday between Cathay Pacific management and its pilots but so far it has been unable to avert the threat of industrial action.

'Mismanagement'

Both sides agreed to meet again on Thursday but by that time the dispute may have escalated so that flights will be disrupted in July.

The mediated meeting on Monday follows intervention by company chairman James Hughes-Hallett and other senior company officials when they met union representatives Friday morning.

Cathay Pacific said the meeting last week was to express a willingness to negotiate but also explain the company's position.

In a sign that talks have not been going well since then Findlay said on Tuesday that pilots wanted "an end to this seemly constant mismanagement by Cathay Pacific which leads to disputes such as this happening on an annual basis ".

'Discriminatory regime'

Cathay Pacific says the pilots' want pay hikes of up to 32% but the union rejects that allegation and accuses Cathay management of deliberately misrepresenting the argument as a salary dispute.

"It is not at all a salary dispute," Findlay said, adding pilots wanted to "stop the discriminatory employment regime" under which they work and a "rostering agreement for the avoidance of fatigue in pilots".

A Cathay Pacific spokeswoman said after a dispute in 1999 the company and pilots had a three-year repackaging agreement in which pay was reduced in return for stock options.

She said Cathay pilots were the best paid in the industry, that the company had already generously offset any reductions and that in the current economic climate a pay rise was not possible.

A 1999 dispute between Cathay and its pilots, which began when Cathay senior pilots took pay cuts in return for stock options, was resolved with the help of the Labour Department.

During that dispute, about 1,000 flights were cancelled.

Cathay leased crewed planes from rival carriers to cover some of the lost flights, as its own pilots phoned in sick en masse saying they were too stressed to fly safely.