A well written and informative letter (not written by me) that deserves to be read by more than just the few it was emailed to:

I've long suspected that the be-all and end-all of this LOA deal is not HKG at all, but rather, Paris. I think all the uproar about HKG issues is a WELCOME smoke-screen for the company, because it has taken our attention away from Paris completely. Paris, I believe, is the elephant hiding in the bamboo.

The French labor courts have recently held that foreign companies who have expat employees based in France are subject to French labor law when it comes to dealing with those employees, even though the employees are not French citizens. How smoothly do you think that has gone down Fred's throat? I'll bet he's still gagging, rasping and clutching frantically at his neck.

The company NEEDS this LOA to get around being subject to French labor law, whether they should ever try to hire French pilots (quel horreur!!), or put our own seniority list pilots there. Since they need this so badly in order to expand in Europe and Asia, why should we take ANYTHING concessionary to help them do it? This company is operating so far in the black, it is inconceivable that they should even consider asking us to help subsidize their expansion costs. This company is notorious for reinventing the wheel, for some reason, when it comes to doing something new to them (such as flying internationally). They seem to willfully disregard the fact that this or that ground has been plowed before, there are experienced people in place who have the know-how to smoothe out this process, just get to work and make it happen. No, they start from scratch, make totally avoidable rookie mistakes, and make things harder than they need to be.

Now, take this HKG HOA/COLA question. The union could have saved a lot of time and effort (which seems to have been of paramount importance to them) in figuring out our needs if they had simply gone by D.O.D. guidelines. The D.O.D. has fully fleshed-out schedules of Housing Allowances and Cost Of Living Allowances for every city in the world where there is even one military member posted. You know when a McDonald's goes up on one corner of a busy intersection -- have you ever noticed that pretty soon there's an Arby's, a Wendy's and a Taco Bell on the other three corners? They're not stupid -- they don't spend any money doing their own brand-new traffic surveys and market studies. They know McDonald's has already done that for them, so they watch where McDonald's goes, then they piggy-back on McDonald's expenditure of time and money.

Similarly, our Union should have simply looked at D.O.D. guidelines for Paris and HKG, and told the Company that our pilots' HOA/COLA should be pegged at, say, the level of D.O.D. guidelines for an O-5 for those cities. Or, if they wanted to allow some consideration for seat position, they could peg Captains's HOA/COLA at O-5 level and F/Os' at O-4 level. This would include schooling, which could negotiably be capped at a set amount per child. The D.O.D. has done all the survey work to take into consideration the cost of housing (astronomical), utilities (at least double the U.S. rate), schooling (exorbitant), transportation (expensive), gasoline (CDG gas is about $8/gal.). We deserve nothing less than that kind of package, and nobody who's ever been on active duty would ever accuse the D.O.D. of lavishing luxury on military personnel, as many of you can attest.

According to the math recently posted in one forum, the company stands to save multiple tens of thousands of dollars for every STV they can post in HKG for 30 days without paying full duty rig. By following the suggested D.O.D. guidelines, they may not save quite as much, but they're still saving plenty over our duty rig, which is now a provision of our CBA. The company is being greedy at our expense, and we don't need to subsidize this a bit.

We need to vote NO on this LOA, and if our union leadership thinks this is more than we deserve, then we need new leadership.

 

The crummy thing is my wife would like to go to HKG, but with children, that's impossible, even if I were to pick up WB capt.

 

But you are so wrong. You can go to HKG on that money. You can live in a 900 sq.ft. apt. and since the square footage from the front door to the elevator is included in that 900 feet you can put a futon out in the hall and put one of the kids out there. You can put the other one on the balcony and you and the wife can sleep in the only 10x10 bedroom in the apt.

Next your wife can home school the kids in that spacious apt. so set aside some room for a pseudo classroom. (don't worry if they get cabin fever. you won't be there!)

Plus you don't need a car for a family. Just get 4 Octopus cards and you can ride the bus with the other people on government assistance anywhere you want to go.

Every month or so if you have any money left over you can treat your family to a nice Sunday dinner with a $40 USDA chicken.

 

And don't forget, since your kids will be building the toys my kids will be playing with they will get tuition reimbursment from the ever grateful CO.