NAAPE to Shut Down Caverton Helicopters over Workers Welfare 

The National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE) has declared a total showdown with the management of Caverton helicopters over what they call fundamental disregard for the well-being of pilots and engineers in their organisation

In a chat with journalists at the NAAPE secretariat at Ikeja, the general secretary of the association, Comrade Olayinka Aboiye, condemned the poor handling of labour and administrative issues concerning pilots and engineers in Caverton helicopters saying that no none of the agreements reached between the organisation and NAAPE has been implemented.

Aboiye noted that most of the workers have not been paid December, some January and others February salaries lamenting that the most worrisome aspect was that in the terms of the agreement, it was established that the dollar rate of their foreign exchange earnings would be at the prevailing rate as announced by the CBN but revealed that N750 to a dollar was the benchmark used for the workers.

“The position of our members and our union is that we want management to offset this payment in terms of that agreement by paying the current dollar rate and not the old rate.

“Why would management continue to owe staff salaries when these staff are working for them? The pilots and engineers are attached to Shell contracts, while Shell is not operating, Shell is paying the management of Caverton helicopters the salaries of all their workers. So, what is the difficulty of the management making available this money to our members”.

He accused the management of the helicopter company of evading tax in the past five years which he described as criminal adding that the taxes paid by NAAPE members which were deducted from the source have not been remitted in the last five years.

Abioye further accused the management of not remitting the contributory pension scheme, “Our pilots and engineers dutifully abided by this, in fact before the money comes to them, the management has deducted and unfortunately and fraudulently, Caverton management has eloped with our members’ contributions without their counterpart funding”.

Abioye explained that some workers who were declared redundant a few years ago were yet to be paid their entitlement after management declared them redundant saying, that they were conditions in which staff could be declared redundant.

“If between now and Wednesday our members are not paid fully their entitlements, we have no choice than to shut down Caverton permanently”.

He revealed that a series of meetings have been held with the management of Caverton, several ultimatum given but failed to comply.