Cathay Pacific pilots’ union chief quits after improved offer to end industrial dispute fails to take off
- Darryl Soligo says time has come for Hong Kong Aircrew Officers Association to take a different direction
- Some 78 per cent of pilots voted to reject deal offering improved pay, perks and conditions on February 1
The chief of Cathay Pacific Airways’ pilots’ union has resigned little more than a week after members rejected a revised offer to end a long-standing industrial dispute.
Darryl Soligo said it had been “an honour and a privilege … but the time has come for the Hong Kong Aircrew Officers Association (HKAOA) to take a different direction”.
The snub prompted some members to call for the union leadership to be sacked.
“We are weaker as an association when we act against those whose only goal is to represent you to the best of their ability,” Soligo said, acknowledging 11 motions put forward by members, one of which was to remove the union heads.
“Undermining the human resource of the union is no different than undermining the HKAOA itself.”
Despite members being overwhelmingly upset about the deal, the HKAOA said the high turnout “must not be seen as a rejection of the process”.
The union said it would continue to press for a resolution with the airline on more easily resolved issues such as pilot work schedules and flying patterns.
Thornier matters – such as housing payments and monthly cash stipends, which had caused a generational divide in the pilot community – would require more time, until the airline’s 2018 financial results were revealed in March.
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Part of the focus was to ensure the airline remained a career airline, which the failure to reach a deal had put in doubt, the union said.
The HKAOA acknowledged more had to be done to reach a good deal and find out what the airline could offer to ensure pilots would vote to resolve the dispute.
The second failure to end the industrial tension, and by a much wider margin than the first in 2016, was a warning sign, according to Soligo.
“We must prepare the membership for the possibility of escalation [should the airline retaliate],” he said. “This will only come, though, if the company reacts irrationally to your clear rejection … or if we are unable to make incremental progress.”
Soligo was appointed chairman in late 2016 on a mandate to rally pilots together and seek a deal with the company in a more diplomatic and peaceful manner than his predecessor.
However, the union entered talks with Cathay at a time when the embattled airline was losing money, facing strong competition and shedding jobs as part of a raft of cost-saving measures.
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One pilot, who declined to be named, said of Soligo’s record: “Darryl represented a different direction, a less confrontational one, with the hopes of engaging the company. He was elected a few years ago when people were impatient with the previous chairman.
“The pilots are now getting impatient that Darryl’s approach is not working either and people are feeling perhaps we need someone like the previous chairman. Darryl did not do anything wrong … it is just he did not deliver to the expectations of the membership. I hope the next chairman will.”
