4 July, 2011
The ICEM-affiliated Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) issued an ultimatum on 15 June to the Petroleum Equalisation Fund Management Board (PEF) over the continuing victimisation of its Branch Chairman and other executive committee members.
The senior staff union warned the PEF management that if victimization of its officials continues, workers would reply through industrial unrest not only in PEF but the entire Nigerian oil industry.
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.
The PEF management has been conducting aggressive interference in union affairs since a recently successful PENGASSAN campaign forced PEF management to promote over 70% of its staff who had stagnated at the same grade for upwards of six years. PEF set up a panel to investigate union member activity in terms of their adherence to union rules, clearly not the jurisdiction of management, and a breach of union independence intended to undermine PENGASSAN.
In a letter to the PEF Executive Secretary, PENGASSAN General Secretary Bayo Olowoshile warned that, “the management of PEF is given a 14-day ultimatum with effect from the date of our earlier letter of June 15, 2011 to respect the Association’s structure, rules, and extant laws on Trade Unions and labour relations or get prepared to face the consequences of full scale national industrial action in the oil and gas industry”.