Comrade Issa Aremu the Vice President of Geneva based IndustriALL Global Union with over 50 million members worldwide has hailed the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), Nigeria National Petroleum Co-operation (NNPC), for calling off the three day warning strike while advising the International oil companies to ensure decent work by obeying Nigerian labour laws.
In a statement of solidarity and support for the unions struggle in the sector, Comrade Aremu insisted that increasing Summary factories’ closures and arbitrary termination of the work force in the petroleum sector and any other sectors of the economy amount to gross violation of Nigerian labour laws which have provisions for dispute resolutions including redundancies and closures. He added that the burden of economic recession cannot be put on the shoulders of the working people while corporate managers carried on with business as usual to maximize profits. Comrade Aremu hailed the prompt intervention of the Honourable minister of labour Dr. Chris Ngige and urged the public to prevail on Shylock employers to respect workers’ rights if they must enjoy uninterrupted service and products supply. “We often call on the trade unions to call off strikes, while the public hardly appreciate the fact that it is the working people in the oil sector under the most precarious conditions that have been making products available” he said.
Comrade Aremu therefore urged all stake holders to take the advantage of the period of strike suspension to address the outstanding unresolved labour issues in dispute so as to avert total work stoppage in the sector.
Some of the outstanding labour issues as articulated by NUPENG and PENGASSAN include non-divestment by the multinationals especially in OML 53 and 55 operated by Chevron and now OML 30, agreement on Job security and “non-payment of terminal benefits to 48 contract staff and 250 contract staff terminated in Lagos and Port Harcourt by the Nigeria Agip Oil Company, NAOC as well as the refusal of Exxon Mobil Producing to reinstate over 200 NUPENG members sacked through its directives to its labour contractors despite ultimatum jointly issued by NUPENGASSAN. Other issues are total closures of the company’s eastern operations through divestment and refusal to discuss the redundancy terms and its refusal to facilitate the formation of Chevron labour Contractors Forum to interface with NUPENG. Both sector unions namely PEGASSAN and NUPENG are affiliate unions of IndustriALL whose 5 GOALS include, Building Union Power, Confront Global Capital, Defense of Workers’ Rights, Fight Precarious Work and Ensuring Sustainable Industrial Development.
