Ladies and Gentlemen,

We're one-quarter of the way through the Election campaign and, at the risk of overloading you with messages, I think I need to write to our senior Based members directly.

I've been in contact with many of you over the last week and you've confirmed what many of us already knew: you feel aggrieved that you took a disproportionate hit last summer when management threatened you with termination unless you signed for a large pay cut. This seems to have affected you and your families in several ways:

• Despite previous promises to the contrary, your contract was re-negotiated downwards and you are still being told that you are overpaid.
  

• The cuts were of such magnitude that they have severely eroded your financial plans, and they seemed independent of CoL at the Base.
  

• The cuts also reduced your "payment in lieu of PF", thereby attacking your retirement provisions.
  

• All of these, whilst you perceive that the HK guys didn't do as badly.

This is not the fault of your Association. We didn't cut your pay. I'm HK-based but please don't take this as a gratuitous platitude. From where I stood last year, management pointed their biggest guns at your trenches and you sustained the biggest damage. What happened is history. That does not mean that we should stop there.

I will not make "election promises" that cannot be backed with reason. What is unreasonable is that our members continue to take pay cuts, stemming from the "fight for survival", whilst our Company makes increasingly record profits. I'm not an economist, but - one week before the end of the first-half cycle - I would not be at all surprised if our Company makes in excess of HK$4.5 billion profit for this year, and maybe nearer HK$5.5 billion. Next year's pay cuts will be indefensible morally and, possibly, practically.

Any practical difference you can make will only be through our Association and it will take a year's preparation. If we're going to do anything about the 3^rd pay cut, we need to be organised, efficient, reasonable, and prepared for the hard grind. That will depend upon you.

One promise I can give is that I'll do my best to represent your views with personal vigour and the support of a focussed, new, representative Committee. But you need to elect me first.

Best regards

Nigel Demery

 23^rd June 2000

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