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12 January, 2009
PENGASSAN, the ICEM-affiliated senior staff union in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector, is on the verge of declaring a full scale strike action nationwide. This follows a seven-day warning strike by the oil and gas labour movement, late 2008, which ended without a satisfactory result. The on-going dispute has pitted PENGASSAN and the management of the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF), particularly PEF Executive Secretary Adefunke Kasali. Kasali, who has been attempting to implement new regional policies which victimise workers in certain areas.
“The only thing that could avert this strike is for Kasali to drop the unpopular policy,” stated a PENGASSAN representative.
PENGASSAN union members hold significant leverage in Nigeria; its members are supervisors at each of the petroleum depots, which transport fuel and diesel throughout the country. The depots are under the control of PEF.
A recent action by the other ICEM affiliate in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, NUPENG, included a joint action with PENGASSAN against the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR). Together the two unions issued a 21-day ultimatum to the federal government to rescind its decision to appoint a pre-shipment inspector, Cobalt, or risk industrial action.
The decision to outsource this work to a foreign firm has angered the unions, especially since the pre-shipment inspection function was already being statutorily performed by Nigerian workers of the DPR. According to union statistics, the federal government will pay up to US$87,400 daily for this unneeded service.
An Edo State PENGASSAN chairman insisted that the deployment of Cobalt "to the country's 21 crude oil export terminals amounts to mortgaging the nation's economic heart beat. NUPENG and PENGASSAN, as responsible unions, cannot, therefore, fold their hands to see this essential sector of the nation's economy ravaged at this point in our nation's history."