2010-08-27 updated　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　過往內容 >>

More than 400 Dragonair flight attendants have decided to go on strike, complaining about too much work and not enough pay. 港龍航空有超過400位空勤人員因為工作量過多及工資不足決定罷工。The cabin crew union is warning the public to be prepared for flight cancellations, saying management left them with no choice. Dragonair flight attendants were in fighting form as they went in for a meeting today to decide what action they would take. Last month’s unforeseen bad weather forced many Dragonair flights to be delayed and in turn, forced many of its cabin crew to work extra shifts. That’s in addition to the already heavy workload from this year’s Shanghai Expo and during the summer high season. Dragonair management said it understood the extra burden and pressure its staff had to deal with and offered better terms today. Dragonair Inflight Services general manager Cecilia Leung said the company has already recruited 70 more staff and they are expected to start work this October. The airline will also simplify inflight procedures to ease the cabin crew’s workload. To top that, the company will increase allowances for staff working overtime. But that wasn’t good enough for the flight attendants, and they announced this evening they will be going on strike. The flight attendant’s union leader Winnie Poon who represents more than 800 of the carrier’s 1,300 cabin crew, said more than 400 of the them would be joining the strike. She said this would mean flight cancellations, but the union would try to pick an off season period when there wouldn’t be too much disruption for the traveling public. Union members rejected management’s offers, saying they want more compensation for working overtime. They also complained of mistreatment by management. Poon said flight attendants live their lives according to their rosters and the company should therefore have the decency to ask whether they wanted to work overtime instead of forcing them to. There’s been ample warning about this impending strike. About 300 Dragonair flight attendants staged a protest at the start of this month, complaining about an excessive workload. Dragonair, a sister airline of flagship carrier Cathay Pacific, mostly covers cities in mainland China and Southeast Asian countries with a fleet of 31 planes. The company recorded year on year growth of 18.1 percent in cargo and mail last month.

Vocabulary:
cabin (noun.) 客艙	Allowances (noun.) 補貼; 津貼
disruption (noun) 崩潰
Related words:
Chaos (noun.) 混亂

Rita Fan – local deputy to China’s parliament – told the media today not to worry about remarks made by a senior Beijing official that monitoring the government shouldn’t be a priority during times of crisis. 人大代表范徐麗泰表示，傳媒不需爲中央高級領導人指傳媒不承認在國家有危難時以監察政府爲首要工作的言論感到擔憂。Fan also did not see how those comments had any connection to whether Hong Kong should revive its national security law. Remarks by a senior official form Beijing’s Liaison Office during a meeting with local journalists yesterday has made many in the industry uneasy. That’s because the liaison office’s publicity, cultural and sports director general, Hao Tiechuan, said the media should help the government instead of putting it under pressure during times of social unrest Hao said priority should be given to helping authorities resolve social problems first while the media’s usual role as a government watchdog should take a backseat during unusual times. It was up to Rita Fan local deputy to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, to calm fears while in Beijing today. Fan said Hong Kong’s media did not have to be concerned about Hao’s comments as they were only precautionary words for journalists to cooperate with the government in time of crisis. She said there also could have been a misunderstanding due to Hao’s choice of words and the different cultures between Hong Kong and the mainland. Fan said while Hong Kong should work with the mainland, it did not mean the city needed to slavishly follow Beijing all the time. There should be a balance between the two. Fan also did not see any connection between Hao’s remark and the issue of reviving the city’s national security law. This came after media speculation that Beijing had been pressuring Hong Kong to enact the national security legislation under Article 23 of the Basic Law. The controversial bill was shelved in 2003 after half a million people protested against it. She said she couldn’t see how Hao’s remarks had anything to do with the city reviving the law and it was the responsibility of the Hong Kong government to activity pursues the matter. Still, Fan said it was an issue the government would need to deal with eventually and it was up to Chief Executive Donald Tsang and his cabinet to decide when the appropriate time was.

Vocabulary:
Precautionary (verb.) 預先警戒的	Slavishly (adj.) 奴隸般地
Controversial (adv.) 富爭議的
Related words:
Provoke (verb.) 刺激(反抗)

Local carrier Dragonair has narrowly averted a strike by hundreds of its cabin crew after they reached an agreement over working hours. 港龍航空與數以百計的機艙服務員達成有關工時的協議，成功避免了一場罷工。Both sides said they were pleased with the outcome of the talks, and plan to hold more meetings next month on pay. After a marathon 13-hour session of talks that started on Friday afternoon, Dragonair managed to avoid what would’ve been the first strike by its cabin crew since the local carrier launched commercial flights in 1985. Inflight services general manager, Cecilia Leung said the airline acknowledged how much pressure the cabin crew were under and just how heavy their workload was, so it agreed to implement some temporary relief measures. Dragonair plans to hire another 50 cabin crew to ease the burden on staff, it will also offer allowances for those who volunteer to work on their days off and for those who must work on flights that are short of staff; plus it will operate some routes as charter flights. The airline said it was glad the union had put the interests of passengers first. Cabin crew union, the Hong Kong Dragon Airlines Flight Attendants Association, said it was pleased with the outcome of the talks and the new temporary measures, so it decided to cancel its planned industrial action. “They promised to recruit 50 more cabin crew and they will (be) coming on line around December, so that means the manpower will be enough to fulfill the needs for the Christmas holiday and at the moment they can decrease the pressure of our cabin crew.” Both sides plan to meet again next month for talks on reviewing the roster system and pay structure. “So for the salary review, so we have proposed a meeting until September, so we need to have further discussions about this.” In the statement, Labour Secretary Matthew Cheung welcomed the resolution of the dispute. “This clearly demonstrates that with sincerity and mutual understanding of both the management and the union, differences can always be ironed out through communication and negotiation.” Cheung also praised the Labour Department for its “hard work, proactive mediation and professionalism” in sorting out the dispute.

Vocabulary:
Narrowly (adj.) 狹窄地; 險些兒	Temporary (adv.) 臨時
Roster (noun.) 名冊
Related words:
Cooperate (verb.) 合作