North Sea strike?
I was one of those who 'volunteered' as I recognised that I would probably be selected anyway - the second time in my flying career that I had been made redundant - and, having been cautious and not bought the fancy house and car, was relieved to be able quit the industry after 38 years, 24 of them on the NS, and I've never looked back. 16 years on and I hope that management changes might mean that the 60 pilots at risk there today might fare better than being given similar callous options to those we received - sadly I somehow doubt it. I really feel for the guys at risk and it's a hard lesson that loyalty in employment is rarely a two way thing.
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Democritus I remember your case(s) very well as it was really the first time that we all realised that even employment law would ultimately not recognise our industrial agreements.
PITTS - I will answer your question once but seeing as you are dysfunctional I doubt you will understand. The pilots are balloting because the Company has instigated a redundancy policy that ignores the existing industrial agreement. An agreement the pilots have followed faithfully in the hope the Company would do the same. Without such agreements, rosters, pay, conditions would be back to Victorian times. Such is the level of social intelligence amongst the average NS Manager.
As I already stated, telling everyi pilot they are all at risk is Fundementally unsafe. No one in the cockpit is immune from worry about their future. I hope the CAA can fins a legislative stick to beat the management over the head with.
PITTS - I will answer your question once but seeing as you are dysfunctional I doubt you will understand. The pilots are balloting because the Company has instigated a redundancy policy that ignores the existing industrial agreement. An agreement the pilots have followed faithfully in the hope the Company would do the same. Without such agreements, rosters, pay, conditions would be back to Victorian times. Such is the level of social intelligence amongst the average NS Manager.
As I already stated, telling everyi pilot they are all at risk is Fundementally unsafe. No one in the cockpit is immune from worry about their future. I hope the CAA can fins a legislative stick to beat the management over the head with.
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There is only 1 sure thing and that is that things will ramp up again, although it may take a while. Those Pilots being made redundant will be needed again.
Its short sighted "quarterly cash return" style American Management that thinks its smart to make Pilots redundant when they will be needed again.
So, if there is real solidarity among NS Pilots and an intelligent Union, why not ask for volunteers among those who may retire and others who may want to go, then go to Management and suggest keeping everyone else employed at 66% salary.
Everyone stays current, everyone can at least eat and the employer is well placed when the upturn comes.
Its short sighted "quarterly cash return" style American Management that thinks its smart to make Pilots redundant when they will be needed again.
So, if there is real solidarity among NS Pilots and an intelligent Union, why not ask for volunteers among those who may retire and others who may want to go, then go to Management and suggest keeping everyone else employed at 66% salary.
Everyone stays current, everyone can at least eat and the employer is well placed when the upturn comes.
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Reality check
everyone can at least eat
Please don't diminish your argument or your standing by suggesting that poverty is around the corner. Genuine poverty exists in both Britain and abroad. You should see it.
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Satsuma
Keep your skin on. "Got to eat" is a figure of speech or a saying, like "rice in the rice bowl". You need to get out more. I am not pleading poverty for myself, I am not directly affected or threatened by redundancy (yet)
Johni
My point exactly. All this hand wringing on here is totally hollow. Pilot A doesn't care about Pilot B, there is no solidarity, its dog eat dog.
Keep your skin on. "Got to eat" is a figure of speech or a saying, like "rice in the rice bowl". You need to get out more. I am not pleading poverty for myself, I am not directly affected or threatened by redundancy (yet)
Johni
Ha, pilots will never vote for that.
DB- thanks for the reply.
If these agreements had previously been demonstrated not to be upheld in law why persist with them?? After that experience was there no appetite for change?
Although to be fair few focus on their redundancy package when they sign their contract as a hopeful new starter on day 1.
As for not telling pilots they are at risk of loosing jobs, at Bristow you have a point but CHC's position is different. See what redundancy packages look like when the company you work for goes bust.
If these agreements had previously been demonstrated not to be upheld in law why persist with them?? After that experience was there no appetite for change?
Although to be fair few focus on their redundancy package when they sign their contract as a hopeful new starter on day 1.
As for not telling pilots they are at risk of loosing jobs, at Bristow you have a point but CHC's position is different. See what redundancy packages look like when the company you work for goes bust.
As a sympathetic observer of all this, and one who is trying to understand how a strike could possibly help, I am at a disadvantage in not knowing how the compulsory element is to be administered. From the foregoing, I gather it is not LIFO, but a percentage across the whole seniority spectrum, is that right? And is it just statutory redundancy that is being offered?
Will someone spell it out for those who are now on the outside? If unwilling to state details because of confidentiality, anyone who recognises my name can PM me.
Will someone spell it out for those who are now on the outside? If unwilling to state details because of confidentiality, anyone who recognises my name can PM me.
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However, in reality, they will fudge the process to get rid of who they want to. ie the expensive people, and the 'troublemakers'.
Who would you get "rid off", if youŽd be the employer here?
I would also cut down on expensed-and kick those out who made my life difficult before.....
Pittsextra
It is exactly what happened on the Norwich Shell/Dancopter case and I would suggest will happen again a bit further North if not countered in the courts
It is exactly what happened on the Norwich Shell/Dancopter case and I would suggest will happen again a bit further North if not countered in the courts
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Must admit I agree with johni here. If you follow the list presented by Variable Load, then it is nothing but "cherry picking" for the management to keep the employees they like, and ousts those they don't. It is neither transparent nor objective.
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Sorry johni ... I was simply being sarcastic about your cynicism !
I do have an understanding about what HR may do on the managers' behalf ....
I am not NS, I do not have the best, yet lowest paid, job like some here - but defend those who have raised their standard and consider striking to maintain their conditions on the most boring of, yet well-paid, helicopter jobs!
I do have an understanding about what HR may do on the managers' behalf ....
I am not NS, I do not have the best, yet lowest paid, job like some here - but defend those who have raised their standard and consider striking to maintain their conditions on the most boring of, yet well-paid, helicopter jobs!
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I am at a loss to understand where're notion has comefromthat a NS salary will buy a fancy house, car and send kids to private schools.
The average NS pilot clears between 2.5 and 5.5k per month. Living in Aberdeen a modest 4 bed house mortgage for a person without family money will burn between 1500-2000 per month. By the time all fixed costs are met probably 2.5-3.0 k has already gone.
School fees amount to approx 800-1200 per month.
Having put 2 kids through private school my NS salary certainly could not cope alone with that burden. I know. I have lived that dream! And the one thing I did not have was a flying debt to service.
I have also suffered a redundancy with three small kids in 1991 right after after the interest rates had peaked at over 15%. At its height my mortgage payment exceeded my net salary. My minimal savings were already depleted. It sucked. It sucked really badly. My experience gives me intimate first hand knowledge of what these people are going through and the stress and worry, embarrassment and feeling of hopelessness that is ever present until something positive happens.
For you, quite frankly, idiots out there, posting utter garbage and expressing punitive opinions of those individuals affected. Shame on you! You do not deserve to called "Rotorheads" you clearly have no clue what these processes are like and how it feels to lose a job,that for the most part, you have worked hard at and done all that was asked of you.
Hueyracer. Sure the world is a tough place and I hear you comments five by five. However I have no respect for someone who cannot sympathise with a man or woman faced with the prospect of unemployment. Whatever the circumstances may be. That's because I know exactly how that feels and even though I personally have many freinds on the NS and some who would consider not to be my friend, I feel for them all. No one deserves what is about to happen.
Huey, also you can scoff at offshore pilots. Like all onshore pilots who think flying offshore ops is a piece piss. But let me remind you that my colleagues spend 98% of their flight time flying over hostile open water. They cannot pop it in a field when a light comes on. Smoke a tab and wait for the ground crew. They spend most of their flight time knowing that if they cannot stay in the air, survival becomes a serious issue. That, above all, is the reason they earn a higher salary than you.
I note that there are very few NS pilots posting on this thread. Maybe fear keeps them quite but I suspect many are reading the sad drivelyouguys post.
Johni, your lack of solidarity for your former colleagues says more about you than them. By your own admission you have never faced redundancy and yet you offer sanctimonious, unsympathetic offerings. Shame on you sir!
The average NS pilot clears between 2.5 and 5.5k per month. Living in Aberdeen a modest 4 bed house mortgage for a person without family money will burn between 1500-2000 per month. By the time all fixed costs are met probably 2.5-3.0 k has already gone.
School fees amount to approx 800-1200 per month.
Having put 2 kids through private school my NS salary certainly could not cope alone with that burden. I know. I have lived that dream! And the one thing I did not have was a flying debt to service.
I have also suffered a redundancy with three small kids in 1991 right after after the interest rates had peaked at over 15%. At its height my mortgage payment exceeded my net salary. My minimal savings were already depleted. It sucked. It sucked really badly. My experience gives me intimate first hand knowledge of what these people are going through and the stress and worry, embarrassment and feeling of hopelessness that is ever present until something positive happens.
For you, quite frankly, idiots out there, posting utter garbage and expressing punitive opinions of those individuals affected. Shame on you! You do not deserve to called "Rotorheads" you clearly have no clue what these processes are like and how it feels to lose a job,that for the most part, you have worked hard at and done all that was asked of you.
Hueyracer. Sure the world is a tough place and I hear you comments five by five. However I have no respect for someone who cannot sympathise with a man or woman faced with the prospect of unemployment. Whatever the circumstances may be. That's because I know exactly how that feels and even though I personally have many freinds on the NS and some who would consider not to be my friend, I feel for them all. No one deserves what is about to happen.
Huey, also you can scoff at offshore pilots. Like all onshore pilots who think flying offshore ops is a piece piss. But let me remind you that my colleagues spend 98% of their flight time flying over hostile open water. They cannot pop it in a field when a light comes on. Smoke a tab and wait for the ground crew. They spend most of their flight time knowing that if they cannot stay in the air, survival becomes a serious issue. That, above all, is the reason they earn a higher salary than you.
I note that there are very few NS pilots posting on this thread. Maybe fear keeps them quite but I suspect many are reading the sad drivelyouguys post.
Johni, your lack of solidarity for your former colleagues says more about you than them. By your own admission you have never faced redundancy and yet you offer sanctimonious, unsympathetic offerings. Shame on you sir!
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Pitts. As you seem so informed of the CHC financial situation I hope we can agree on one point. The situation in CHC financially, bears absolutley no relation to the work rate, dedication and proffessionalism of those employees at the coal face. It is the work of Executive Management and shareholder expectation. Can we at least agree on this and therefore release just a modicum of empathy for the coalface CHC employee that I suspect resides in your heart!
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Variable Load. The list reference you provide in no way is intended as a substitute for long established bi-lateral industrial agreements.
Agreements right now that are being wholly disregarded by one party. That is precisely why the pilots have balloted for strike action. What other possible response could management expect after sticking two fingers up to the industrial agreement.
At the end of the day, failure to honour these agreements leaves a state of anarchy.
Whilst I realise management sieze the opportunity to cull those pilots they consider undesirable, the net effect is a serious degradation in ongoing safety of the flight operation. Good luck with that!
Agreements right now that are being wholly disregarded by one party. That is precisely why the pilots have balloted for strike action. What other possible response could management expect after sticking two fingers up to the industrial agreement.
At the end of the day, failure to honour these agreements leaves a state of anarchy.
Whilst I realise management sieze the opportunity to cull those pilots they consider undesirable, the net effect is a serious degradation in ongoing safety of the flight operation. Good luck with that!
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Well you did at least two out of three. Sorry but we all know North Sea pilots get paid a fortune, you can't pretend it's not the case. If you're earning those kind of big bucks but can't make ends meet you've made some pretty bad choices along the way. My next door neighbour was over the moon the other day because he's got himself a job in a local factory earning minimum wage. He manages alright on pennies.