The National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE), has vowed to shut down all operations of Bristow Helicopters from midnight Monday, August 3, 2020 over alleged blatant discriminatory policies and consistent victimization of Nigerian workers.
Already, all pilots and engineers in the employ of the company have been directed by the aviation union to begin an indefinite strike following failure of management of the company to proffer solution to the problem.
“NAAPE has been actively engaged with the management of Bristow for some time now in a bid to carry out the renewal exercise of the conditions of service for national pilots and engineers.
“NAAPE had previously instructed members in the employment of Bristow to embark on a three-day warning strike at the expiration of which an olive branch was extended to the Bristow management in the form of a seven-day notice period during which the union had held out hopes of an amicable resolution to the items under contention but unfortunately Bristow Management was unable to proffer any solution even after the union graciously extended seven days’ notice period at the behest of Bristow management”, the Deputy General Secretary of the association, Comrade Umoh Ofonime said in a statement.
He added: “Presently, all sundry labour matters and negotiation between both parties are broken down to include: management proposal to suspend the Conditions of Service (CoS), negotiations and their deliberate subversions of established terms of agreement with NAAPE, insistence on benchmarking salaries of national pilots and engineers to an obsolete rate of N345/$1 coupled with the recent insistence on their proposal to implement N355/$1, a rate which is not obtainable on any legs foreign exchange window in the world while still paying expatiate foreigners their full remuneration in USD.
“Others are failure to train qualified persons in Airline Transport Pilot License (ATPL) and failure to fully reimburse individuals who have successfully completed their ATPL through self-sponsorship, disproportionate matching and capped reimbursement cash figures for self-sponsored pilots on ATPL with an employment bond of N30 million-An obvious unethical and sharp practice.
“Odious laying off of young cadet and trainee engineers after several years of tearful sacrificial toiling on the basis of a promised career in the company and now in extension of the insatiable thirst of nulling our vitality, the company is prepping for a preposterous and unjustifiable redundancy of engineers and pilots hitherto grossly mistreated vis-a-his the company’s non-adherence to expatriate quota law, national content law and Presidential Executive Order No.5Anomalous implementation of Engineers matrix/chart/ progression and refusal to adjust national engineers’ progression in tandem with expatriate nationals and global aviation standards. The norms of jettisoning negotiated agreements as in the case of systemic dissolution of the engineering work shift in Eket operations.”
According to the union, the indefinite strike will entail complete withdrawal of all services indefinitely until the issues at stake are fully resolved.
“Such action shall define anyone who acts otherwise as an antagonist of good faith and will be met with the appropriate response. To this effect, NAAPE expects and demands full compliance from all members including chief engineers and chief pilots”, the statement added.