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Pilots, Engineers shut down Bristow Helicopters

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Bristow Helicopters

Efforts by the management of Bristow Helicopters to reopen for business on Thursday suffered a setback, as the National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers of Nigeria, NAAPEN, an affiliate of the Trade Union Congress, shut down all its offices in Port Harcourt to protest against what it described as the company’s discriminatory policies.

The protesters were led by NAAPEN’s Isaac Balami, national officials and the state Chairman of TUC, Chika Onuegbu, as they blocked the company’s plan to open operations.

According to the protesters, Nigerians working as pilots and engineers with Bristow Helicopters for the past 10 years have endured untold suffering due to unfair and mindless policies of the management of Bristow Helicopters.

“They treat them like they are in a slave camp. You will see a co-pilot who just has 200hrs experience from UK, South Africa and Canada earning far more than their Nigerian counterparts who have been working for years,” Balami said.

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“Nigerian pilots and engineers are treated like slaves in their own country. A job that a Nigerian can do they sack him and give it to a foreigner and pay him more.

“They have been sacking our co-pilots and the employing white men. We are even more competent than them. Today no helicopter of Bristow will fly until the Managing Director comes to answer us. We have also discovered that the management do not care about the welfare of workers. So before it becomes a safety issue they must come and hear us.”

According to Balami, their agitation was not about pay rise but fairness.

“We are not saying we want pay rise. We are not saying we want salary increments but what we are saying is we need valid conditions of service in tandem with the labour laws,” he explained.

“We also want pay parity. We have other airlines that operate in this country and they obey the labour laws.

“Those airlines operate within the rules and regulations of this country where captains you are treated as a captains”, adding that captains
should be treated fairly whether white or black.

“They should be treated equally. They should not treat us as slaves in this country,” he said.

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