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8 October, 2007
ICEM’s two Nigerian oil and gas workers’ unions, NUPENG and PENGASSAN, gave the government and an energy company a two-week ultimatum on Friday, 5 October, or face a strike. The blue-collar and white-collar unions are fast losing patience with Conoil-Belbop Ltd., a publicly-listed Nigerian company engaged in oil and gas exploration, as well as petroleum products marketing.
The unions are pressing the government to force the company to comply with terms of a 2005 collective agreement, or face a national strike in the industry.
Salaries by the company have not been paid since August 2007, and Conoil-Belbop has sacked nearly all union members inside its 300-member workforce in a reorganization of the joint companies. The company is attempting to recruit new employees.
In late 2006, the company arbitrarily and unilaterally reduced salaries by 30%, and refused to conclude talks earlier in 2006. The unions also accuse the company of unethical distribution of redundancy letters. NUPENG and PENGASSAN have already placed an embargo on all work at Conoil-Belbop.
At a joint press conference on 5 October, PENGASSAN President Peter Esele said, “It appears the embargo is not enough to make Conoil behave properly, and so we are taking it to a different level.” The two unions called on the federal government and the ministers of labour and energy to immediately intervene.
The company’s continued efforts to circumvent the unions are directly contrary to an order issued by the National Industrial Court in June 2007. Conoil is the marketing and distribution arm of the Lagos-based company, while Belbop is engaged in services related to oil and gas exploration.
PENGASSAN President Peter Esele
In other Nigerian news related to PENGASSAN, the senior staff union held a three-day workshop in Calabar, Cross Rivers state, over the weekend of 1-3 October. A statement from the workshop calls for a national summit as the means to resolve the ongoing crisis in the Niger Delta.
Entitled “Fostering Congenial Industrial Climate in the Nigerian Oil and Gas Sector: Challenges and Strategies,” the statement calls on the government to wage a genuine fight against corruption in all facets of life, to give strict adherence and implementation of proposed Memorandums of Understanding with local communities, begin real infrastructure development, and to engage in youth empowerment projects.
“The workshop is concerned about safety and security of oil workers and other stakeholders in the Niger Delta,” said PENGASSAN Acting President Mustapha Wall and General Secretary Bayo Olowoshile in a statement. “The workshop agrees that underdevelopment, unemployment, corrupt activities of the local and political class, conflict merchants, and lack of political will by the ruling class contribute” to the denigration of society in many areas of the Niger Delta.