Bristow UK strike
It would be an interesting comparison, assuming someone could find some accurate payscales from that era. The N Sea salaries and work patterns underwent something of a major evolution in the early 2000s, when salaries went up by about 30% over a few years and the number of days worked moved from about 220 per year to about 182 days per year.
If I were a betting man, I would say the current workforce has a much better package, including salary, than that of the late 70s.
If I were a betting man, I would say the current workforce has a much better package, including salary, than that of the late 70s.
£9757 for me tax year '77-78, four days on two off throughout the year except when flying through the strike when it was four on one off four on two off. New to civilian life I joined Bristow's just before the strike and knew nothing about it until I bumped into another pilot whilst on a day off!
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£9757 for me tax year '77-78, four days on two off throughout the year except when flying through the strike when it was four on one off four on two off. New to civilian life I joined Bristow's just before the strike and knew nothing about it until I bumped into another pilot whilst on a day off!
Thread Starter
Bristow pay lags behind the other offshore operators by a considerable amount. They have had no pay rise for 8 years while enduring high inflation in the UK. Nobody is ‘trousering’ anything. 110k per year for a multi crew helicopter captain particularly under Scotland’s ridiculous and punitive tax regime is derisory.
It would be an interesting comparison, assuming someone could find some accurate payscales from that era. The N Sea salaries and work patterns underwent something of a major evolution in the early 2000s, when salaries went up by about 30% over a few years and the number of days worked moved from about 220 per year to about 182 days per year.
If I were a betting man, I would say the current workforce has a much better package, including salary, than that of the late 70s.
If I were a betting man, I would say the current workforce has a much better package, including salary, than that of the late 70s.
Bench marking with the airlines in the early 2000s did mean a big pay increase for North sea pilots, prompted by the fact that loads of experienced crews were leaving for an airline job and more than half of the pilots had their frozen ATPLA.
Thread Starter
Well you have now. Bristow have a fixed roster for their pilots based on personal preference in terms of the pattern. There is no leave allocated on top. The rest of the world work usually 5 days out of 7 then have vacation and bank holiday added. The part time jibe is smoke and mirrors. For all the detractors on here why not go and either join the military, get trained on helicopters for at least 8 years, fork out 160k for an ATPL (H) or get sponsored by Bristow. Last time 4 places from 3,000 applicants for the scheme. To get to the derided 110k then takes several years of training and testing to have the huge responsibility of command not reflected currently in the pay. Balpa have commented on the intransigence of the management which hints at the toxicity of the company. Next time a Bristow helicopter rescues people in perilous situations, let alone the contribution to the economy from the oil and gas sector it may be prudent to reflect on some of the comments here.
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Next time a Bristow helicopter rescues people in perilous situations, .
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Crab, major respect for your service but I don’t know how long ago that was and if recently you were underpaid. I repeat post Covid double digit inflation, no pay rise for 8 years. 95 pc voted for strike action, including the SAR sector from a virtual full turnout. You can’t argue with that. I am close enough to the action to say also that the company have been unbelievably petty and spiteful. Passive aggression and ‘bullying’ doesn’t come into it. The pilot group deserve Balpa support from all the membership and the wider aviation community. Strike action is the last resort and not frivolously taken.
Crab, major respect for your service but I don’t know how long ago that was and if recently you were underpaid. I repeat post Covid double digit inflation, no pay rise for 8 years. 95 pc voted for strike action, including the SAR sector from a virtual full turnout. You can’t argue with that. I am close enough to the action to say also that the company have been unbelievably petty and spiteful. Passive aggression and ‘bullying’ doesn’t come into it. The pilot group deserve Balpa support from all the membership and the wider aviation community. Strike action is the last resort and not frivolously taken.
FWIW, a brief and not necessarily full account of my financial status during the late 1970 - the Bristow strike was April ‘77.
75/76 RAF Flt Lt £5453
76/77 RAF and Bristow Captain £6111
77/78 BAH First Officer £4600
78/79 BAH Captain £8626
79/80 BAH Captain £11352
Interesting times indeed, and BALPA proved worth every penny of my subscription - up to, and including, taking on the successor CHC successfully decades later in an Industrial Tribunal.
Best wishes to the current crews in the present unhappy situation; despite it all it was a great life (just don’t mention Robert Maxwell!)
75/76 RAF Flt Lt £5453
76/77 RAF and Bristow Captain £6111
77/78 BAH First Officer £4600
78/79 BAH Captain £8626
79/80 BAH Captain £11352
Interesting times indeed, and BALPA proved worth every penny of my subscription - up to, and including, taking on the successor CHC successfully decades later in an Industrial Tribunal.
Best wishes to the current crews in the present unhappy situation; despite it all it was a great life (just don’t mention Robert Maxwell!)
I don't know you Olster, so I am judging you purely on what you've posted, but you come across as entitled. Also, if a company was that bad, I would just leave and work somewhere else - your skills are transferable and your market rebounding - why stay if its that bad? Surely CHC, NHV or whatever Babcock is now called, would hoover you up?
Olster - I left in 2014, the year before the Bristow contract started, as the Sqn training officer on £72K (think Trg Capt, TRE/TRI).
The people transferring from Mil to Bristow went to circa £95K overnight in 2015. Until late 2022 when Liz Truss tanked the economy, inflation was 2% and it's now 3.2%.
The double digit inflation actually only lasted for 9 months or so but granted it was above 3% for a couple of years.
I believe the present SAR Capt's salary is a good bit north of £100K.
I get that the lack of pay rises over 8 years grates and is unfair but I didn't hear anyone complain about the money when they changed to Bristow.
That's not to say I don't support the actions of my ex-colleagues, the attitude of Bristow managements was in question before they even got the contract for UKSAR so some of my early concerns have been slightly vindicated.
My nephew is in the middle of a similar Balpa vs management battle over pay with a low cost airline so I have some sympathy with the Bristow crews.
The people transferring from Mil to Bristow went to circa £95K overnight in 2015. Until late 2022 when Liz Truss tanked the economy, inflation was 2% and it's now 3.2%.
The double digit inflation actually only lasted for 9 months or so but granted it was above 3% for a couple of years.
I believe the present SAR Capt's salary is a good bit north of £100K.
I get that the lack of pay rises over 8 years grates and is unfair but I didn't hear anyone complain about the money when they changed to Bristow.
That's not to say I don't support the actions of my ex-colleagues, the attitude of Bristow managements was in question before they even got the contract for UKSAR so some of my early concerns have been slightly vindicated.
My nephew is in the middle of a similar Balpa vs management battle over pay with a low cost airline so I have some sympathy with the Bristow crews.
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FWIW, a brief and not necessarily full account of my financial status during the late 1970 - the Bristow strike was April ‘77.
75/76 RAF Flt Lt £5453
76/77 RAF and Bristow Captain £6111
77/78 BAH First Officer £4600
78/79 BAH Captain £8626
79/80 BAH Captain £11352
Interesting times indeed, and BALPA proved worth every penny of my subscription - up to, and including, taking on the successor CHC successfully decades later in an Industrial Tribunal.
Best wishes to the current crews in the present unhappy situation; despite it all it was a great life (just don’t mention Robert Maxwell!)
75/76 RAF Flt Lt £5453
76/77 RAF and Bristow Captain £6111
77/78 BAH First Officer £4600
78/79 BAH Captain £8626
79/80 BAH Captain £11352
Interesting times indeed, and BALPA proved worth every penny of my subscription - up to, and including, taking on the successor CHC successfully decades later in an Industrial Tribunal.
Best wishes to the current crews in the present unhappy situation; despite it all it was a great life (just don’t mention Robert Maxwell!)
finalchecksplease If you'd like to put a value on the "gold plated package" of the '70s go ahead, but I would highlight that when the final salary pensions were taken away there wasn't a commensurate increase in salaries.
I think the pilots at Bristow do have a case when compared to the CHC package. However OHS and NHV are very close, but with a different salary structure.
Just looking at the effect of inflation on the value of the £, if we assume £8626 was an average to good salary for a N Sea P1 in 1977, in todays money that would be equivalent to about £81,000.
finalchecksplease If you'd like to put a value on the "gold plated package" of the '70s go ahead, but I would highlight that when the final salary pensions were taken away there wasn't a commensurate increase in salaries.
I think the pilots at Bristow do have a case when compared to the CHC package. However OHS and NHV are very close, but with a different salary structure.
finalchecksplease If you'd like to put a value on the "gold plated package" of the '70s go ahead, but I would highlight that when the final salary pensions were taken away there wasn't a commensurate increase in salaries.
I think the pilots at Bristow do have a case when compared to the CHC package. However OHS and NHV are very close, but with a different salary structure.
Like some others here, my interest in this is about SAR provision. The background going back 11 years indicates a few downward pressures on costs that may have helped bring things to this stage.
IIRC, back in late 2012, fellow incumbent contractor CHC were dropped from the competition because they were 20% more expensive than the cheapest bidder entering the final stage.
The present contract started with a baked-in remuneration problem, as indicated here by both Crab and I, in that Technical Crew Members were on pay scales very different from the MoD Professional Aviator Scales they had experienced in a former life. The new regime did not properly reflect "who is taking all the risks in SAR" as I think Crab put it.
During the early part of the contract, the Bristow Group Inc quarterly results, documents given almost religious significance in the American finance world, were lies. For instance, investors were fooled by being told that purchases like new SAR aircraft would be far later than were necessary for contract compliance. Then the inevitable happened.
During the Chapter 11 bankruptcy episode, one of the most important things that saved Bristow Group Inc was that a subsidiary had a contract with a monetarily sovereign government that was writing them a big cheque every month. Not the only thing that saved them but highly significant. The value of those UK SAR jobs had never been so great.
The contract cost structure was designed by the DfT to prevent the CONTRACTOR from making decisions about SAR tasks on cost grounds (informant: Director Aviation, MCA). That structure was never designed to prevent the CUSTOMER from manipulating the contract output on cost grounds.
The present contract fixed price part was £1,600,497,465. The new contract starting in October, has a fixed price part of £1,959,355,159, that being an increase of 22.4%, when ONS numbers tell us that inflation has been 32% across the period, and FW and UAS are now included (although fewer and cheaper rotorcraft are to be used). The contract competition closed some months early after at least two competitors saw the light and decided they could not compete with the incumbents numbers.
... ... ...
IIRC, back in late 2012, fellow incumbent contractor CHC were dropped from the competition because they were 20% more expensive than the cheapest bidder entering the final stage.
The present contract started with a baked-in remuneration problem, as indicated here by both Crab and I, in that Technical Crew Members were on pay scales very different from the MoD Professional Aviator Scales they had experienced in a former life. The new regime did not properly reflect "who is taking all the risks in SAR" as I think Crab put it.
During the early part of the contract, the Bristow Group Inc quarterly results, documents given almost religious significance in the American finance world, were lies. For instance, investors were fooled by being told that purchases like new SAR aircraft would be far later than were necessary for contract compliance. Then the inevitable happened.
During the Chapter 11 bankruptcy episode, one of the most important things that saved Bristow Group Inc was that a subsidiary had a contract with a monetarily sovereign government that was writing them a big cheque every month. Not the only thing that saved them but highly significant. The value of those UK SAR jobs had never been so great.
The contract cost structure was designed by the DfT to prevent the CONTRACTOR from making decisions about SAR tasks on cost grounds (informant: Director Aviation, MCA). That structure was never designed to prevent the CUSTOMER from manipulating the contract output on cost grounds.
The present contract fixed price part was £1,600,497,465. The new contract starting in October, has a fixed price part of £1,959,355,159, that being an increase of 22.4%, when ONS numbers tell us that inflation has been 32% across the period, and FW and UAS are now included (although fewer and cheaper rotorcraft are to be used). The contract competition closed some months early after at least two competitors saw the light and decided they could not compete with the incumbents numbers.
... ... ...
Last edited by jimf671; 8th May 2024 at 17:16. Reason: grammar
The present contract fixed price part was £1,600,497,465. The new contract starting in October, has a fixed price part of £1,959,355,159,
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/g...rch-and-rescue
The MCA has it at £1.6
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From the BOE inflation calculator, £70k in 2014 is £93k now. Factor in the amount you need to contribute to the pension and it's not as wide a gap as you think.