Terminated HKG Pilot #4 Responds

This was put out for public consumption on the HKG Pilot Google Group. I've copied Pilot #4's response here.


Response from Pilot 4 to the “HKG Appeals”
I am pilot 4 in the recent published statement put out by Capt. Jim
Bowman, the VP of Flight Ops. With so many aspects of my case so
biasedly aired, I am compelled to present some basic facts.
• Since joining the company, I have never made a single sick call, nor
have I ever missed a trip. I participated in projects that benefitted
the company. I was awarded a Bravo Zulu for helping the company with
Chinese ATC issues. I am an ALPA CIRP volunteer. I have never been a
problem employee and am definitely not a 1% troublemaker.
• 10 months before I was awarded the HK FDA position, my husband and I
bought a house in MEM, our first since getting married. Two months
before I was due to be activated to HK, my husband got a job with HK
based Cathay Pacific Airways and started training in HK. We sold our
MEM house and established our permanent residence in HK from the very
beginning. At the completion of his length training in HK, he was
assigned ANC base (being based in ANC was the condition of his getting
a class date with CX so we knew and shared it openly with managers).
His main route is ANC –HKG. As he was crossed trained on both cargo
and passenger flights, he also flies out of HK to other Asian
destinations.
• Of the 46 months I have been based in HK, there is ONLY ONE MONTH my
husband was completely absent from HK. Yet the company completely
discounted most of my husband’s time in HK, claiming that those times
are “worked related”, and thus are disqualified from meeting the
secret housing allowance criteria. Many HK pilots can tell you that
an easy 50% of the HK pilots’ spouses spend less time/less frequently
in HK than my husband does. Those pilots are still employed and
receiving housing allowance.
• My husband has a crash pad in ANC, a 1000 sf apartment he shares
with two other pilots. He owned that rental property for years before
we got married. It is a 4-plex, in a rental neighborhood, nothing
fancy at all. I didn’t commute. More than three quarters of our
family time was spent in HK. HK has been our primary home together.
HK is our family’s “center of gravity”— a term the company used in a
recent FDA arbitration hearing as a way of explaining /defining what
primary residence is for the FDA pilots. And it is by far the most
the company has ever elaborated on what “primary residence” really
means. Yet, in my case where we indeed fully meet this definition,
the company decided that it doesn’t apply.
• As of today, two months after the company fired me for failure to
maintain our primary residence in HK; we are still rooted in HK and
will be keeping our home here for the foreseeable future. Because we
simply don’t have another primary residence anywhere else to go to.
• Last summer when the company put out the Amnesty program, we
approached both ALPA legal and management to get clarification on our
situation, we were told by both that “it doesn’t apply to you” “you
are the poster child for our FDA”, “you and your husband are exactly
what the company wants out here”, “if anyone has a problem, ask them
to come and talk to me.” As late as last December, my boss assured me
that I was in compliance with the FDA and “will be cleared of the
investigation”.
• Two months ago, I was handed a termination letter accusing me of
“fraudulently obtained” the housing allowance.
• In the “HKG Appeal” letter, the VP claimed that the company offered
me “very accommodating” “amnesty program”, if one can call the
following accommodating: a 5 year probation, two months disciplinary
suspension, waving just about every right one has on the planet, and
to top it off, admitting stealing and cheating and acknowledging that
“just cause” exits for the company to terminate me. I want my job
back, and had seriously considered accepting the company's terms, but
at the end, my heart would not let me, not under these terms, as I
didn’t deceive the company at all, just the opposite, I have been open
and forthrigh, but the company has not.

I could go on and share a lot more details of facts and truth about my
case, and I will eventually, but for now, I just want to dissect what
VP Capt. Bowman put out regarding my case. The below text in grey or
brackets if you can't see color are Capt. Bowman’s original words, the
rest is mine.

{{When considering bidding for a HKG crew position, Pilot 4 informed
the Company's Managing Director in charge of relocations that Pilot
4's spouse was a pilot for a regional airline in the U.S. The pilot
was instructed that she would not be eligible for the HKG FDA housing
allowance unless her husband also relocated his primary residence to
HKG. She assured the Managing Director she and her husband would
comply with that requirement.}}

The above is factual but partial. I just want to point out that my
contact with the said MD (initial SH, a notorious name many of you
former Subic pilots are familiar with) took place in Dec 2007/Jan
2008, 5 months before I was to relocate to HK. The MD’s concern lied
specifically on my husband’s employment with Pinnacle Airlines as he
questioned me repeatedly how my marriage was going to work with me
based in HK and my husband based in MEM working for a regional
airline. 3 months after the encounter and two months prior to my
relocation, my husband quit his job at Pinnacle, got a job with HK
based CX and started training in HK.

{{Pilot 4's spouse was then hired by an airline that required him to
be based in ANC. The Managing Director in charge of relocations was
never notified about this, and the HKG Chief Pilot was led to believe
by Pilot 4 that her husband commuted to his base in ANC from their HKG
apartment.}}

With the exception of the first sentence, the above statement could
not be further from the truth. First of all, both the HK Chief Pilot
and the MD were notified of my husband’s new employment timely and
before my relocation. Here are the specific facts:

• Three months before I was to be activated into HK, in March, 2008,
at a briefing organized by the company for the would-be-FDA pilots, my
husband and I openly talked about and shared his new employment and
future base (ANC) with everyone at the meeting including HK Chief
Pilot Capt Sanvidge, several HR people whose jobs were to monitor and
administrate the FDA Housing Allowance, and a dozen pilots. One of
those pilots present at that meeting has come out and stated in
various occasions that he was right there when my husband told the
Chief Pilot about his new employment. Some of you have read the email
sent out by this captain with the subject titled “the truth”. At no
time did anyone have any concern about my husband’s new employment.
Just the opposite, we were congratulated.

• Two weeks before I was to relocate to HK, HK Chief Pilot informed
the said MD in writing of my husband’s new employment. Emails from
both the MD and Capt Sanvidge clearly show that both were informed and
aware of my husband’s new employment with Cathay Pacific Airways.

• It is worth pointing out that the company searched and printed out
334 pages of emails from my company email account covering a period
from January 2007 to as late as Dec, 2011, but there is a whole week
of emails between May 13th 2008 to May 18th 2008 that were missing,
emails that show the managing director and HK CP were notified and
informed of my husband’s employment. In response to repeated requests
submitted by my ALPA legal Council for those emails, the company
denied the existence of those emails. It is only through some hard
effort that I finally was able to retrieve some of the emails which
indeed show that I openly shared my husband’s employment situation
with management. I am still waiting for the company to present one
most important email that the MD indicated he received from HK CP, a
piece of evidence that would further prove how the company twisted the
facts. Shown by the emails in my personal account they read without my
knowledge or permission, and printed out for the investigation, they
have access to every email that ever passed through any FedEx
employee’s account. Yet they can’t find this one. This is just one
example to show you how far the company has gone and will go to build
their case against an employee. And they call this “just culture”.

• Finally, the above have been pointed out over and over to those in
charge of my investigation. Even the author of the 10 page
termination letter acknowledges “Capt Sanvidge became aware sometime
after May 2008 that your husband was based, not in HKG but in ANC.”
It should be clear who is not telling the truth.

{{In 2011, Pilot 4's husband declared in a notarized document he sent
to the Company (as part of his effort to be hired as a pilot at FedEx)
that he was a long-time resident of Alaska, and he had not at any time
resided outside the U.S. (Even by US Postal Service residency
requirements, Pilot 4's husband would be considered a full-time
resident of the US). In addition, Pilot 4 testified that during the
time she had certified to FedEx that her husband had his primary
residence at her apartment in HKG, her husband had applied for and
received a State of Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD). PFD
payments, which are funded by Alaska oil revenues, are only available
to residents of Alaska who have not claimed residency in any other
state of country.}}

In order to have a full view of what Capt Bowman was implying, and
before any conclusion can be fairly drawn, some basic facts must
first be established by asking some critical questions.
1. Can the HK pilots and spouses be legal residents of HK like the
company wants them to be? The answer is NO.
• According to Hong Kong Immigration ordinance (Cap.115), Part IB, S.2
AA(1) ) “A person's status as a permanent resident of the Hong Kong
Special Administrative Region under paragraph 2(c) of Schedule 1, can
only be established by his holding of- (c) a valid permanent identity
card issued to him.” And to qualify to apply for a Hong Kong
permanent identity card, “a person not of Chinese nationality” must
“has entered Hong Kong with a valid travel document, has ordinarily
resided in Hong Kong for a continuous period of not less than 7 years.
“schedule 1. 2 (d). (underlines are my emphasis).

• Under this Hong Kong law, all the Hong Kong pilots (except one
individual who has been living in HK before the FDA was open), their
spouses and dependants are not considered permanent residents in the
eyes of the HKSAR. We are just visitors with temporary employment
visas, a temporary Hong Kong Identification Card, and with only the
legal right to Abode. Thus, by default, all the HK pilots, whether
they declare it or not, are statutorily residents somewhere else
outside of HK, be it a state back in the U.S. or some other country.
My husband’s making a statement declaring his AK residence is not
different than those FDA pilots who have voted while living overseas –
a vote is a declaring of resident.

• Basically the company refuses to clarify their standards, instead
uses a formula of “ You are A, therefore you must not be B” to build
their case without even attempting to consider the facts.
2. What are the conditions /definitions the State of Alaska put out
for someone who wants to become an Alaska Resident?
• For voting purposes, you are considered an Alaska resident if you
reside in the state and intend to remain here or you leave with the
intent to return. (http://www.elections.alaska.gov/vi_vr_who_can.php)

• The company is saying that if you make a statement to some
government agency that you are an AK resident based on the above while
accepting Housing Allowance, then you commit fraud, does it make sense
to you?! If so, then all of the HK pilots who receive HA are thieves,
as they are all residents of some state back home or some country
outside of HK.
3. Who is eligible to apply for Alaska State Permanent Fund Dividend?
And how does receiving PFD make one ineligible for the FDA Housing
Allowance?
According to the State of Alaska, following are the basic
requirements: (Important to note that this specifically refers to the
individual person, not their Abode.)
• Be a resident of Alaska during the all of the calendar year

• On the date of applying for the 2012 Permanent Fund Dividend, have
the intent to remain an Alaska resident indefinitely;

• have not claimed residency in any other state or country or obtained
a benefit as a result of a claim of residency in another state or
country at any time since December 31, 2011;

• If absent from Alaska for more than 180 days, was absent on an
allowable absence.

By mentioning the PFD, the VP is exploiting the misconception that in
order to obtain it, one must spend every day in AK, thus implying that
my husband didn't spend any time in HK. Well, as you see from the
above, that is not true at all. There are many specific rules and
definitions to the PFD and how one qualifies for it is none of the
company's business. What the company won't tell us is how many days
and how often a pilot and spouse need to be in HK to be considered
qualify for their secret HA standard. Give me a speed limit, then I
will follow. Without one, but simply comparing me to a bicycle and
accuse me of going to slow, or pointing to an airplane and declaring
that I am going too fast, just won't do it.

In conclusion, HK law says we are not HK residents, we both qualify as
residents of the State of Alaska, which in turn gives us the right to
vote in AK, to obtain resident hunting and fishing licenses, and to
apply for PFD if all other conditions are met. I have not received the
PFD since living in HK, and my husband has only recently received it.
The company has breached another sensitive area they should definitely
not have put in a public letter that goes out companywide. While we
have nothing to hide, employees’ individual monetary situation, taxes
and benefits should never be publicly displayed like this. It is more
disgraceful behavior by the company.
It is also worth pointing out the number of times I have said “my
husband” in this email. If we had gotten divorced before coming to HK,
and nothing else was changed in our lives except for that piece of
divorce paper, I would still have my job, and would not have this
heavy burden of having to explain over and over again to the company
everything about my husband’s whereabouts. None of this would have
happened and FedEx would still be very happy with me. The human rights
commissioners in AK see this as a clear sign of marital discrimination
and an investigation has been launched.
That is for today, thank you for taking the time to learn the truth!

--