Babcock Spain announces intention to cut its employees salaries up to 30%
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2019
Location: Spain
Posts: 4
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Babcock Spain announces intention to cut its employees salaries up to 30%
Babcock MCS Spain and Babcock Fleet Spain, wich operate the majority of the helicopter emergency services in Spain under local and national Government contracts (SAR; Fire fighting; EMS; border control, etc, and also O&G), informed their employees of the intention to lower their 1200 staff salaries of up to 30% (affecting mostly the pilots salaries). This, while the board has increased their own salaries on the past year by 26,8%
There is a strike going on at the moment, but since the Spanish laws declare the obligation of the personal involved in emergency services to perform them with 100% availability (with all personnel involved in these emergency services still working fulltime while on strike), and by so, left without effective tools to arrest this situation, there is an expected downturn of the future finantial conditions of the personnel involved with the Helicopter aviation sector in Spain, since beeing the biggest operator here, it should set the new baseline for salaries, even with other operators. This are hard times . . .
A lot of information and videos about this on Google and youtube by the words "Huelga Babcock" and "recortes Babcock"
There is a strike going on at the moment, but since the Spanish laws declare the obligation of the personal involved in emergency services to perform them with 100% availability (with all personnel involved in these emergency services still working fulltime while on strike), and by so, left without effective tools to arrest this situation, there is an expected downturn of the future finantial conditions of the personnel involved with the Helicopter aviation sector in Spain, since beeing the biggest operator here, it should set the new baseline for salaries, even with other operators. This are hard times . . .
A lot of information and videos about this on Google and youtube by the words "Huelga Babcock" and "recortes Babcock"
Sounds like those aircraft are all about to suffer a wave of writeups for the tiniest things.
Handling things this way is going to cost Babcock management a hell of a lot more in parts/box changes/downtime than it is in wages. Especially after giving the frontline staff middle finger by management taking pay raises.
Handling things this way is going to cost Babcock management a hell of a lot more in parts/box changes/downtime than it is in wages. Especially after giving the frontline staff middle finger by management taking pay raises.
Tell Management to pack in their hind ends.....and walk!
Do not look back!
Do not look back!
Join Date: Jun 2019
Location: Bilbao
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
not granted the possibility of acting in this way...
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2019
Location: Spain
Posts: 4
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Unfortunately, Spanish laws allow an unilateral change of the working conditions, after a period of negotiation of both parts (workers and company). This is called a "Substantial change of the working conditions" being the Spanish acronym for this "MSCT", and it means that after asking if the workers accept to lower their salaries (and even if the workers say no), the company can go ahead and cut the values unilaterally with the percentages they decide. It seems crazy, but itīs the world we actually live in. The law says that if this cut is applied (under MSCT law), it then gives the worker the right to ask for the termination of itīs contract, with the right to ask for 20 days of payment for each year they worked on the company, with a maximum value of the equivalent to a 9 months salary, although Babcock infomed the workers they will not pay this by free will if one decides to leave this way !!!, wich, in case the workers decide they will not accept the new cutted salary,
leaves them with the option of waiting for a court decision after years of appeals and lots of money spent on an attorney and on the case costs itself.
Since in the last 3 years the company maintained the exact same salaries for itīs personnel), wich means earning less each year (caused by the annual inflation), and the payed salaries are not in any way above an European, or Spanish average for the sector, the unions representing the workers have been informing of the decision of not accepting any type of decrease on the employees salaries. The negotiations are now on a standstill as the company maintains itīs decision to cut the salaries, so now we have 1200 workers with the pressure of not knowing if in the end of the month they will be able to maintain their living costs and the ruling word at the moment is uncertainty. Like if there was not enough pressure inside a flight deck/cabin, or a maintenance facility to keep us all returning safe every day ….
leaves them with the option of waiting for a court decision after years of appeals and lots of money spent on an attorney and on the case costs itself.
Since in the last 3 years the company maintained the exact same salaries for itīs personnel), wich means earning less each year (caused by the annual inflation), and the payed salaries are not in any way above an European, or Spanish average for the sector, the unions representing the workers have been informing of the decision of not accepting any type of decrease on the employees salaries. The negotiations are now on a standstill as the company maintains itīs decision to cut the salaries, so now we have 1200 workers with the pressure of not knowing if in the end of the month they will be able to maintain their living costs and the ruling word at the moment is uncertainty. Like if there was not enough pressure inside a flight deck/cabin, or a maintenance facility to keep us all returning safe every day ….
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2019
Location: Spain
Posts: 4
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I must agree with you on that one Ersa, as there is always someone willing to work for much less, specially and strangely on the aviation sector where becoming a professional usually came at high personal costs.
Anyway, the roles involved regarding this post (from the pilots point of view), are usually very specialized, ranging in most of the cases from requiring an ATPL, usually with a current and sometimes very expensive Type rating, with FF, winching, or HEMS exp., with some of those requiring MC/ME experience, and in some cases IMC/IFR or night experience, and with a mandatory certified on both English and Spanish aviation languages (the last not required for us locals), what makes me think, that if in fact a cue of pilots starts to lign in with salaries 30% lower, wich, as you say is very likely, then that will for sure come with a price, as we all know what usually happens to aviation companies wich make drastic cuts in their operational departments.
As the saying goes: "If you pay peanuts, you get "
Anyway, the roles involved regarding this post (from the pilots point of view), are usually very specialized, ranging in most of the cases from requiring an ATPL, usually with a current and sometimes very expensive Type rating, with FF, winching, or HEMS exp., with some of those requiring MC/ME experience, and in some cases IMC/IFR or night experience, and with a mandatory certified on both English and Spanish aviation languages (the last not required for us locals), what makes me think, that if in fact a cue of pilots starts to lign in with salaries 30% lower, wich, as you say is very likely, then that will for sure come with a price, as we all know what usually happens to aviation companies wich make drastic cuts in their operational departments.
As the saying goes: "If you pay peanuts, you get "
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2019
Location: Spain
Posts: 4
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
It happens that if anyone involved in a strike (and considered in a "minimum services" role) refuses, or try to mislead the authorities, in order not to perform his emergency duty, then the authorities might impose severe penalties for anyone for doing so. Most of Babcock Spain contracts fall into this as they are mostly emergency services, such as Fire Fighting; SAR; HEMS.
The problem is that the government, in order to protect the general public usually establishes a definition of "100% minimum services", what on one hand is quite fair for the general public, as the government does his job in order to protect the citizens life, but this has the high cost of leaving the oneīs who perform these services without the right to manifest themselves. The ambiguity of the law even seems to allow the company to establish the instruction of the personnel involved in this services and the maintenance of backup helicopters as "minimum services".
It has been hard to see on the news, the interviews of pilots, rescuers, mechanics and even desk personnel, saying that beside all this hard situation, no person will be left un rescued at the sea, the fire fighting pilots saying every fire will still be fight while on (this fictitious) strike, and the mechanics saying they will still do their best to keep the machines flying at their best level of security. In the end all this story is showing us all what some of the current managers of this and other companies donīt see, and donīt understand, and that is that the best asset of any company is their staff.
In the end, the question is: who will rescue the rescuers when they need ??
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: On the green bit near the blue wobbly stuff
Posts: 674
Likes: 0
Received 1 Like
on
1 Post
It seems grossly unfair. I think it would be very difficult for the authorities to prove that anyone was NOT stressed in this situation, and was therefore trying to mislead them.
I have been told that the reason for the pay cuts is because Babcock were fined very heavily (somewhere near 50 Million Euros) for dodgy business dealings (creating a cartel) in Italy and are trying to claw back some of the money this way.
Yet whilst cutting the salaries of the people who actually do the dangerous stuff, the management increased their own salaries by a very similar percentage.
Is there no fiscal oversight from authorities in these cases?
Yet whilst cutting the salaries of the people who actually do the dangerous stuff, the management increased their own salaries by a very similar percentage.
Is there no fiscal oversight from authorities in these cases?
