Summer walkout at Cathay threatens to go global with help of influential umbrella group
Heat is on as international labour group pledges support for crew that may see planes grounded
A powerful international labour group has ramped up pressure on Cathay Pacific to offer a better employment deal to cabin crew by vowing to assist in a disruptive summer strike threatened by their union.
Gabriel Mocho Rodriguez, civil aviation chief for the International Transport Workers' Federation, told Cathay that settling grievances over pay and benefits was "in your best interests" so industrial action "doesn't become the only way forward due to a lack of progress".
It is the first time the federation - whose member unions represent some 4.6 million workers - has intervened in a dispute at Cathay since the last cabin-crew strike, in 1993. Should a strike take place, it will encourage affiliates in key destinations to put pressure on the carrier.
Talks between the Cathay Pacific Airways Flight Attendants Union and airline management were to restart on Wednesday after the government invited both parties to the Labour Department in an attempt to end the stalemate.
The mediation efforts follow the union's 41-hour sit-in across three days at Chek Lap Kok airport and another protest outside the company's headquarters last week.
In a letter to Cathay chief executive Ivan Chu Kwok-leung, Rodriguez expressed concern about the handling of the labour dispute.