Managing Director, Hajiya Inna Maryam Ciroma (right) congratulating the vice chairman of Maritime Workers Union. Rivers State Council, Comrade Godwin Dominic at the 2014 NIWA safety awareness campaign, at Port Harcourt NIWA Dockyard, Marine Base while General Manager, Corporate Affairs, NIWA, Mr Tayo Fadile (middle) watch. Photo: Nwiueh Donatus Ken

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and the National Union of Petoleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG) began a three-day warning strike today, over anti-labour practices in the oil and gas sector of the nation’s economy.
The anti-labour activities listed by the oil workers include unjust delay in the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill, retardation of staff promotion in the Petroleum Technology Development Fund, non-standardisation of nomenclature and collective bargaining agreement of the Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Agency in line with what obtains in other agencies in the oil and gas industry, refusal of the Management of Addax/Petrostuff Nigeria Limited and Chevron/Sudelletra to recall sacked staff, Petrobras management’s unprocedural release of staff and its refusal to renew expired Collective Agreement, the unjust termination of the appointment of the Port Harcourt Zonal Secretary and Treasurer of PENGASSAN and NUPENG respectively
Oil workers under the aegis of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria have concluded plans to shut down all oil and gas installations in the country due to the anti-labour activities of some employers in the sector.
The anti-labour activities listed by the oil workers include unjust delay in the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill, retardation of staff promotion in the Petroleum Technology Development Fund, non-standardisation of nomenclature and collective bargaining agreement of the Nigerian Nuclear Regulatory Agency in line with what obtains in other agencies in the oil and gas industry, refusal of the Management of Addax/Petrostuff Nigeria Limited and Chevron/Sudelletra to recall sacked staff, Petrobras management’s unprocedural release of staff and its refusal to renew expired Collective Agreement, the unjust termination of the appointment of the Port Harcourt Zonal Secretary and Treasurer of PENGASSAN and NUPENG respectively.
Other issues are the perilous state of the nation’s strategic and industrial roads and highways, non-beneficial deductions of National Housing Fund from workers, un-abating measures of addressing pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft and divestments by International Oil Companies without clear guidelines to check the resultant arbitrary job losses, heightening insecurity of PENGASSAN members/families in the troubled parts of Northern Nigeria.
According to a statement issued by the PENGASSAN Secretariat on Sunday, plans are at the final stage with its sister union, the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, to mobilise members for a nationwide industrial action that will disrupt operations in the oil and gas sector until the Federal Government showed genuine intention to earnestly attend to and resolve the issues.
PENGASSAN noted that the 14-day ultimatum given by its National Executive Council meeting of October 30, 2014 to the Federal Government and other concerned employers’ and agencies and further ratified by the Joint NEC of both NUPENG and PENGASSAN on October 31, 2014, had since expired without any meaningful resolution or commitment from either the government or the concerned employers’ and agencies at resolving the issues.
The statement hinted that all levels of the Union have been fully sensitized and mobilised for the inevitable industrial actions that will affect every value chain in the upstream, midstream and downstream of the oil and gas industry.
The union explained that the purported termination of the appointment of its Port Harcourt Zonal Secretary, the Nupeng Zonal Treasurer was an ill-conceived act of victimization by their employers and which the NNPC, Federal Ministries of Petroleum Resources and Labour and Productivity, the Department of State Services, the Department of Petroleum Resources have advised the company’s management against, but remained unbending.
On crude oil theft and acts of vandalism, PENGASSAN alleged high level collaboration of the security agencies, politicians and highly placed Nigerians in the buccaneering racket of oil and gas installations and the resultant crude oil theft, adding that the ugly trend signifies a looming extinction of the oil and gas industry with attendant job losses.
This further endangers the national economy with the persistent drop in crude oil prices, the union said.
The association called on the Federal Government to mobilise contractors to site for immediate repair of all perilous roads leading to all oil and gas installations in the country, especially the Shaguolo/Alternative Road to the PPMC depot in Warri, Delta State; Eleme/Onne Road, in Rivers State; Apapa/Ijora/Wharf Road and Tin Can Island Road, both in Lagos State; and the Port Harcourt/Enugu Road.
The association described the deduction from workers’ salaries for the National Housing Fund as sheer exploitation and demanded that the deduction should be stopped forthwith, saying that it would be forced to resort to whatever necessary labour action it deems appropriate to protect its members from further exploitation of the non-beneficial policies that has served no member’s interest in the sector.
The national body of the apex union in the oil and gas industry have also mobilised its members to various Internally Displaced Persons’ centres across the nations to deliver relief materials and alternative conditions of living, especially for women and children.
It stressed that anything short of purposeful dialogue to resolving the issues will spark the fully mobilized action.
The Association’s position was made known by Comrade Igwe Achese, the Chairman of the Joint Council of NUPENGASSAN.