At JNB they get 2 days and have some way to arrange more time off (the captain and co-pilot on my last flight was going golfing). CX has a 3rd pilot on board for all flights over 8 hours duration. I suppose the misinformation that your friend has isn't a big surprise -- CX has had a multi-year disput with their pilots, due to firinging off some a few years ago in the midst of an industrial dispute which is still unresolved best that I can tell. Rather a shame as I think it is really a good company, which tries to make things better, but suffers from a tough competitive position and being in a really (really) tough market. CX is quite different from SQ, for example.
As a point of comparison, AA has 24 hour layovers for trans-Atlantic flights (8 hour sectors). So the crew has a full day off (but no more, and no other allowance for jet lag). I often fly the same schedule to Europe and notice the same captain and cabin crew for my return flight. In that context the CX policy is better than AA's (which is the same for all the major carriers, not just US based ones). The exploitation of labour theory doesn't fly very far with CX.