unleashed

Can you provide a brief summary?
Thank you.

hayzel7773

BR is one big family, and every employee is equally important. Throughout these last few years, the airline has improved the working condition of all employees, including the FAs.

• Eva Air has provided FAs 4 consecutive years of large end-of-year bonuses, equating to around 4-months salary. Additionally, they have consistently been raising salaries, and salary increases have amounted to roughly NT10,000 a month. Part of the union's negotiation has been about the low salary, but BR wants employees to know that they are cared for and they are raising their pay whenever they can. Eva Air is a private corporation that must manage their expenses and profit/loss. Bonuses given at the end of the year have always been from the profit pool, and going on strike will only hurt that.
• Regarding the per-diem, the airline is willing to adjust the per-diem for stations with higher living costs (VIE, AMS, LHR, SFO, JFK, YYZ, SIN etc.) by providing reimbursement for meals while maintaining breakfast etc. at the current hotels.
• Regarding the tiring flights, the airline is willing to compromise, as shown in negotiations. The airline's policy are much better than AOR, and. they are willing to double crew Shenyang and make PNH/TYO voluntary (with extra pay).
• With regards to a union board member, that is not something they can guarantee in negotiations. New board members must be approved by the board of directors; management cannot unilaterally agree to install board members.
• The airline is willing to allow the union to participate in discipline hearings, but refuses to give more than 50% of the votes to them. BR is a company that has SOP to follow, and they will not allow management to not have power to discipline those that need to be disciplined.
• THIS IS THE MAIN POINT OF CONTENTION. The airline cannot agree to a "no-free-ride" provision. Evergreen's policy has always been one of inclusion; everyone is one big family. BR cannot, and will not, go against such a policy and retaliate against employees for not joining a union. Union membership is an employee's own choice, and BR cannot punish someone for going against it. The free-ride provision is something BR will never agree to. Doing so would create crew management issues, quality control issues, and would overall affect the moral of the workforce.

Finally, Chairman Lin asks members to think rationally and encourages the union to come to the negotiation table with an open mind.

The union vote is scheduled for May 13th. They will require 2800 members to say yes (expected), before any further announcements will be made. The MOTC has announced they will be stepping in in the coming days to bring both sides back to the table. They ask the union to not strike and affect the public's rights, and asks the airline to "listen" more carefully to the union's demands. The government, although not stated directly, is not in support of TFAU or this strike.

BlackHappy

coolfish1103

I do want to point out that CI FAs can vote as well, which should make this easy.

If the vote goes through, the union have 1 month before they can start any kind of strike. The one month has nothing to do with whether they need to announce it or not, simply they need a month before they can perform any kind of strike. So starting from June 13 your flight may be cancelled from June 7th due to strike, buy an insurance if you are worried.

unleashed

Does the one month hold out requirement start from the day of the completed vote?
Asking since the results of the vote won't be known until June 6 as per the article in the link below.
Will it mean that the potential strike won't happen until July 6 at the earliest?

Flight attendants union to vote on EVA Air strike May 13 | Society | FOCUS TAIWAN - CNA ENGLISH NEWS

Thank you

coolfish1103

I just went to re-read the rules (rather than news) and to my surprise the one-month language is not there, so I am going to cross that out on the existing post.

In that case, no they don't need to wait for 1 month so they can start strike any time after the vote is over (so from June 7).

Per CI's strike from 2016, the entire process took less than a month (from 5/27 to 6/24), but if we count from the date the negotiation went down, it was 5/13 to 6/24.

hayzel7773

BR has started a local news blitz about the per-diem issue. Multiple media sources are pumping out stories about how their per-diem costs actually are higher than CI.

BR management has also stated in a press call today that if they promise USD5, they are cutting the breakfast as well as using CX's calculation model, which only provides per-diem on flights with layovers and does not start counting until the cabin door is closed/stops the moment the door is opened at the end of the trip. Overall, this would represent a reduction in cost for BR.

hayzel7773