BA HKG Crew Redundant, with no notice.
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at 18:05 by flyingdutchman1.
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handbagParticipantLate yesterday afternoon HKG Crew received an email from their manager.
It invited them to attend a meeting this afternoon for all HKG based cabin crew.
They attend and were handed a letter informing them that you are too expensive to employ, so there contract has been terminated with immediate effect.
If they are on the newer contract they leave with nothing.
If they are old contract they will receive one month’s salary in lieu of notice. No options, no choices, no redeployment agreement, no severance, no transfer and no alternative work; they are simply dispensed with, just like that.
They no longer have a job.
How sad.
1 user thanked author for this post.
26 Sep 2018
at 22:04
Henryp1ParticipantI agree that any redundancy is sad and probably infrequently wanted, I’m guessing that the local employment laws were followed by the company. As with all employers, costs have to be addressed taking into account what paying customers are prepared to pay and expectations of share holders.
26 Sep 2018
at 23:24
FrDougalParticipantWell that would explain why my better half sent me a text from the baggage belt in Hong Kong today saying that all the BA Chinese air hostesses were crying loudly by the carousel clearly traumatized. She felt very uncomfortable by it. So much so she was put off.
Terrible carry on altogether. I really like those air hostesses.
27 Sep 2018
at 00:46
IanFromHKGParticipantOuch. That’s brutal.
HK unfortunately has very employer-friendly employment laws. No requirement for redundancy consultation, and very little in the way of requirements that a post is actually redundant. My former employer made me redundant (also with no notice – I was called into a meeting one afternoon, handed my papers and told I was leaving the same day) shortly before I would have been eligible for a ten-year long service payment, and the week before a new and more junior lawyer joined who was a regulatory specialist. Guess which area of law I was covering for the bank… The whole idea that my post was “redundant” was absolutely laughable. To put the icing on the cake, I was at the time suffering from clinical depression, which my employer knew about. In fact, I had (shortly before this happened) asked my manager for permission to work remotely from the UK for a period during the school holidays, because emotionally I found it easier to cope with family around me. My manager was also well aware of the fact that my wife had left for the UK earlier in the week – so despite the fact that she had seen a letter from my (highly qualified) therapist saying that due to my condition I needed emotional support and would be better able to cope with family around me, I was fired on the spot on a day when she knew perfectly well there was no-one at home to support me. I don’t mean to turn this into a woe-is-me post, but it just goes to show that in terms of employment protection HK is absolutely woeful.
To end on a slightly happier personal note, I am now in another position which pays a lot less but which makes me a lot happier (and I am now off antidepressants probably, in large part, because I no longer work for such a callous organisation). I hope all the BA crew are as fortunate as I am and are able to transfer their skills to an employer which actually cares for its employees.
15 users thanked author for this post.
27 Sep 2018
at 03:43
nevereconomyParticipantHaving worked most of my adult life in the US where most states are as employer friendly as HK – particularly Delaware where I spent most of my years, I feel for the folks in HK. We always feared anyone being called in to HR on Friday as that meant you were not coming back Monday. Of course in the US that means losing your cheaper health insurance which can be worse than losing the job. Very long time since I worked in HK, so not sure how that particular issue will work for the CX people, but they have my sympathy,as I have experienced it and it certainly can be soul destroying. Life as a local in a normal paying job in HK is not easy at the best of times.
1 user thanked author for this post.
27 Sep 2018
at 09:13
stevescootsParticipantIts no surprise that BA has such a bad relationship with its staff both at home and away when this is how the treat them at such a personal time.
27 Sep 2018
at 10:18
christopheLParticipant[quote quote=891391]I agree that any redundancy is sad and probably infrequently wanted, I’m guessing that the local employment laws were followed by the company. As with all employers, costs have to be addressed taking into account what paying customers are prepared to pay and expectations of share holders.[/quote]
Probably the decision to sack all HK staff had to be taken within seconds for an overriding reason so that unfortunately BA didn’t have time to give their HK staff any reasonnable notice… Managing a business is such a tricky job !
One of the five pillars of BA’s corporate responsability programm is “to conduct business responsibly”. This is the reason why “At British Airways we are committed to operating our business in a responsible manner by creating a respectful environment for customers and colleagues”
https://www.britishairways.com/en-hk/information/about-ba/csr/corporate-responsibility
Promises only bind those who believe in them
27 Sep 2018
at 10:42
handbagParticipantThe decision was not made in seconds. Over a period of days many UK based Crew had been positioned to HKG. Some were told the reason that they were positioning was that some Crew homes had been damaged in a Typhoon, so were unable to work.
Why did BA do it? Because they could. Local laws allow much greater flexibility than UK.1 user thanked author for this post.
27 Sep 2018
at 11:12
canuckladParticipantYou know what……. BA has done nothing wrong here, they’ve used local laws to their advantage!!
In exactly the same way that large previously respected companies such as Google, Amazon and others have behaved .
Ba can now proudly stand shoulder to shoulder with these morally repugnant corporations.
Shame, Shame, Shame!!
12 users thanked author for this post.
27 Sep 2018
at 11:12
MartynSinclairParticipantis it also the same a cruise liners registering/operating their ships in jurisdictions which have lighter touch HR rules and regs..than UK?
27 Sep 2018
at 11:40
mkcol74ParticipantDid Virgin Atlantic not do the same about 3 years ago? Unsure if they all got the chop too, or if it was just the seniors, as well as reducing the crew complement on board.
At least the multiple press releases about the new Ozwald Boateng uniforms will have helped bury this further.
27 Sep 2018
at 12:45
EU_FlyerParticipant[quote quote=891399]To end on a slightly happier personal note, I am now in another position which pays a lot less but which makes me a lot happier (and I am now off antidepressants probably, in large part, because I no longer work for such a callous organisation). I hope all the BA crew are as fortunate as I am and are able to transfer their skills to an employer which actually cares for its employees.[/quote]
Thanks for sharing this – which re-inforces the importance of having a fair IR system with rubust enforcement. I’m glad to hear your story ends well and I hope the same for those BA staff affected.
1 user thanked author for this post.
27 Sep 2018
at 14:45
AMcWhirterParticipantmkcol74 – Correct re Virgin Atlantic. There are several reports on SCMP.
27 Sep 2018
at 16:07
christopheLParticipant[quote quote=891719]mkcol74 – Correct re Virgin Atlantic. There are several reports on SCMP.
There is a small difference between BA and VS. VS fired their staff with a four month notice when BA just did it with a zero day notice !
27 Sep 2018
at 19:01 -
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