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30 July, 2007
Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc. Rescinded the suspensions it had imposed on laid-off white-collar oilworkers’ in bargaining with PENGASSAN on 26 July. Following a terse 20 July letter from the ICEM Nigerian affiliate to the Mobil Oil’s managing director, ExxonMobil backed down from full collision with PENGASSAN, and a new labour agreement is now possible if the company meets remuneration demands.
Pay talks will continue early this week, and a settlement with Mobil Oil Nigeria will complete PENGASSAN’s 2007-2008 oil sector bargaining. The union had completed satisfactory negotiations with Chevron, Total, African Petroleum Plc., and other energy concerns, but the world’s largest one, ExxonMobil – bargaining last – attempted to reduce labour standards from those negotiated with the others.
The company committed a serious breach when it contacted and then coerced many PENGASSAN members due to retire to sign voluntary retirement letters. This action in July came while the union and Mobil Oil were in talks, and the issue of early retirement incentives was alive. The voluntary letters were a ploy to reduce the statutory amount of separation benefits that the company would have to pay in restructuring.
PENGASSAN called is “repugnant to statutory stipulations, local and international labour conventions, and best practices” already in place in Nigeria’s oil and gas sectors. The breach flagrantly violated the collective agreement between the two parties as well.
But in Thursday’s talks, ExxonMobil apologized to PENGASSAN and to the sacked workers, and reversed itself by rescinding the letters and reversing the firings.
Now the issue of pay for 2007 and 2008 must be addressed. PENGASSAN Gen. Sec. Bayo Olowoshile said Mobil Oil Nigeria must live up to its market share in the industry and its profit sheet. The conflict now, he said, “is on the reluctance of Mobil to pay competitive remuneration that aligns with the company’s market share and its own remuneration policy.”
PENGASSAN represents over 200 engineers, technicians, accountants, and administrators of Mobil Oil Nigeria at some ten locations. The majority of the white-collar workers are employed at Apapa in Lagos.