Beijing Shunyi District Court has sentenced China Xinhua Airlines to pay a total of CNY1 million to 21 of its employees who were reportedly dismissed by the company in "an underhand manner".
The 21 employees, including 18 stewardesses and three stewards, filed a lawsuit against CXA after they were asked by the company to stop working and attend some full-time training. The employees said that the company had asked them to wait for further assignments after the training, but offered them much lower salary during the waiting period. They asked the court to order CXA to resume paying their normal salary and to pay them compensation.
CXA argued that it had paid the employees their full salary except for the payment for the flight tasks which the employees did not undertake during the training period. But the court found that the two reasons CXA gave for the training the employees were contradictory. CXA first said that it offered the training to the employees to improve their skills because of a flight schedule adjustment due to the financial crisis, then it claimed that it provided the training to employees because they were unqualified, and it was unable to produce effective evidence. As a result the court found in favor of the plaintiffs.
