China's pilots make their point

Industrial action by a group of disgruntled pilots at Chinese airline companies, that happened on March 31 and April 1, where flights from Kunming started to make turns and delivered passengers there they started: in Kunming. Shanghai Scrap gives an overview of the situation.

Anyway, collectively, the airlines are asking Chinese pilots to sign 99-year contracts that include RMB 2.1 million (US$300,000) automatic payments if the pilot breaks the agreement (to compensate for the cost of pilot training). With no union - or court - to protect them, the pilots are basically faced with either signing the draconian contracts, or quitting.

Since China is already having a huge shortage of pilots and other staff, having too many of the quit is not really a nice option. This could be a nice test of China's labor law, but the unions of the pilots - if they are active at all - seem to be no party in the conflict.
More details at Shanghai Scrap.

Update: Interesting. The relevant authorities are admitting the pilot's strike action, say they will punish them and are publishing about it in their China Daily propaganda tool.