HONG KONG (AP) " Several hundred Cathay Pacific flight attendants were camped inside Hong Kong's airport on Tuesday after union members voted to protest new job contracts offered by the airline. Union member Ada So said about 400 cabin staff had gathered in front of the Cathay check-in desks. She said more than 600 union members cast votes, with most in favor of taking job action. They said they are protesting a cut to some cabin crew allowances, pay discrepancies for recently hired junior staff and a loss of legal support for workers involved in court cases such as civil action stemming from a passenger assault. The protesters said they plan to remain at the airport until the company responds to their demands. If it doesn't, they said they would step up their actions. Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong's biggest airline, said it has no plans to change its "double-digit percentage" pay increase for staff promoted to permanent status after an initial 3-year term, and that crew meal allowances had an overall raise in the last half-yearly review. The carrier added that while some wording was dropped in a staff manual for handling unruly passengers, legal support remains unchanged. The airport said in a statement that it was "taking measures to minimize the effects of the union's actions on airport operations." - This story has been automatically published from the Associated Press wire which uses US spelling http://m.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11451374 the most vital point is that, CX wanna stop the legal protection of its crew on plane. if so, when the crew needs to deal with some unruly cases and bad passengers and are attacked by them, the crew, individual employee has to pay the legal expense, not the company. if the employee does not have enough money to pay the legal cost. then they simply have two choices, one is quit the job, or ...just bear it, thinking you are paid for that. even it's sexual harassment, or walloping, you can only tolerate it, as you don't have enough money to sue the customer. this is important to anyone if you will have chance to take CX flight. why? think about it, one day you take CX flight, the guy next to you (or seat near you) are very annoying. you complaint to the crew, and you found they are not willing to deal with him. as the crew don't have legal protection, who wanna take the risk of getting beat up and without compensation? - - - Updated - - - https://www.facebook.com/cxsecret?fref=ts this is their facebook page for this protest. and later i will make a guess why CX wanna stop its crew's legal protection.
