Cathay Pacific’s US-based workers vote to unionise, after anger at threat to retirement benefits
Vote comes only shortly after airline’s announcements of falling revenues and job losses to come
Cathay Pacific Airways’ US-based cabin crew will unionise after almost all of them voted to do so, rejecting the Hong Kong airline’s attitude towards workers’ pay and conditions.
The vote – during which 97 per cent of voters backed the motion – creates a potentially more adversarial dynamic to employee relations, by making industrial action easier to launch. It follows uproar when bosses told hundreds of flight attendants they faced losing welfare benefits and social security protections.
All of Cathay Pacific’s 411 US flight attendants’ pay and contract negotiations will now be handled by that country’s Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), a labour union.
It all began when the company discovered it had for several years been contributing to a US government-run benefits scheme, despite an obscure rule exempting non-American employers with staff working on non-American-registered aircraft paying in.