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3 December, 2007
A dispute between Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd. (NLNG), seven of its contractors at the Nigerian Bonny Island Terminal and ICEM blue-collar oil workers’ union NUPENG, turned violent on 18 November, causing the union to call a nation-wide strike this week if two demands are not met.
The incident that sparked the strike call was a brutal attack by Nigeria’s Joint Military Task Force (JTF) on contract workers – many of them NUPENG members – on NLNG property, which blinded one worker in his right eye, and injured 28 other NLNG subcontractors. The JTF fired tear gas directly at the contract workers, attacking with batons.
The contract worker who was blinded is NUPENG member Ibifuro Pepple. NUPENG arranged for the victim to be fitted with an artificial eye, with surgery set for 11 December by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) at a hospital in Lagos.
The contract workers protested because NLNG reneged on the signing of an agreement granting them union recognition through NUPENG. The agreement was in place after the Nigerian Ministry of Labour and Productivity certified recognition, but NLNG twice backed away from signing the accord, the second time on 18 November. Contract workers at the Bonny Island transfer terminal in Finima then began their protest. NLNG responded by calling in the JTF.
NLNG is owned jointly by the Nigerian government (49%), Shell (26.5%), Total (15%), and Eni’s Agip (10.4%).
NUPENG’s Central Working Committee, at a meeting on 27 November, issued a seven-day national strike notice, demanding prosecution of the JTF officers responsible for the violence and full recognition of NUPENG as representative for the contract workers of the NLNG’s suppliers. The ICEM supports those demands, and calls on the Nigerian government, as well as the multinationals involved, to give full priority to resolving this unionisation issue, and the other outstanding grievances brought by the workers and NUPENG.
NUPENG leaders and government officials will meet today, 3 December, to discuss the critical situation.
On November 26, NUPENG’s Eastern Zonal members at NLNG began the first sympathy strike against the energy company for its indiscriminate, 18 November, actions. Other strikes at NLNG’s five major worksites could occur as early as tomorrow, and other sympathy strikes could spread throughout Nigeria’s energy sector.
Following the 27 November NUPENG Central Committee meeting, leaders of PENGASSAN – ICEM’s white-collar affiliate in Nigeria – stood with their comrades in supporting the declared strike. Senior staff workers at NLNG, represented by PENGASSAN, are firm in their belief that contract workers deserve the right to union recognition with NUPENG.