Dear Bristow member,
There has been further consultation with Bristow senior management over the last week. An initial teleconference meeting occurred on 26 July when the Company informed the two unions and the EC reps that the Company was facing an increasingly difficult financial situation and would need to further reduce the number of engineers with a reduction of up to 10 positions likely over the next few weeks.
This is an unfortunate development and as always the ALAEA will be requesting the Company look at all strategies to mitigate the number of redundancies and to process any requests for voluntary redundancy in preference to compulsory retrenchment.
The Company confirmed they were prepared to consider volunteers to be made redundant and would also look at requests for the option of taking 12 months leave without pay.
Further details were contained in the presentation to all BHA Engineers that the Company released subsequent to the teleconference on 26 July.
On page 5 of that presentation, you will note the Company is calling on assistance from unions and the engineering committee regarding any initiatives for cost reductions and there was a sentence from the Company on page 5 that states:
All management and support staff have had a pay freeze for two years, I need you to open discussions with engineers to look at something similar.
At the teleconference on 26 July there was no real detail provided on this but I understand some members may have heard information that the unions and the EC instigated a discussion about a deferral of the 3% pay increase scheduled for 1 April 2017. Let me reassure everyone that this is not true.
A further teleconference was held with the Company yesterday (3rd August) and we expressed our displeasure at this turn of events and requested the Company further consider their position and then respond in writing to make clear exactly what they are seeking in terms of cost reductions which will allow us to then inform you about the details and seek feedback from you. We are expecting the Company to respond in the next few days
The ALAEA does not believe there would be majority support to agree to a deferral of the 3% pay increase next April and would only engage in such discussions if there was evidence to the union that a strong groundswell of members supported such a move and the Company were prepared to provide a written guarantee about no compulsory redundancies occurring for the period through to the expiry date of the Engineering Enterprise Agreement (EEA) on 31 March 2018.
The main focus of the two teleconferences has been about the notification of further redundancies and the Company’s current business and financial situation. However on yesterday’s hookup we also raised concerns about the Company’s approach regarding the recent notification to a number of engineers about the removal of the AS332 licence payment and our view that the Company is not correctly applying the relevant terms from the EEA. No resolution on this matter has been achieved yet. We also raised the issue about EC representation on the Type Course Training Committee and the Company needing to ensure adequate notification is given to EC reps regarding the scheduling of meetings.
If you have any comment or feedback to provide on these latest developments, you can contact the EC or contact me via my direct email contact
In unity,
Noel Speers
National Industrial Officer
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