by Rachel Ogbu

The National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers are to begin a three-day warning strike today, threatening to go “indefinite” if its demands are not met by Wednesday.

In Abuja, the National President, NUPENG, Achese Igwe, on Sunday said that the union had ordered workers to stop products loading at the depots.

According to reports, he said the strike became necessary following a longstanding labour dispute between it and some major oil companies in the country.

“We are going on strike from tomorrow (Monday). We issued an ultimatum and since then, there has not been any improvement. We had wanted to embark on this strike earlier but we shifted it and we are going to be meeting on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday but that doesn’t stop the strike,” he said.

“We want to see a serious commitment on the side of government on this issue. A situation where a company like Agip will want to promote NUPENG contract workers to PENGASSAN (Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria) contract workers has never happened anywhere in the world.”

“These are contract workers that work in your organisation, and the law states that beyond six months you should convert them to employees. If you don’t want to convert them, then you leave them as contract workers till you are ready. But promoting them to senior staff level (PENGASSAN) is to do what? Is it to still serve as contract staff or slaves for more years? So this country must change in culture of job regulations.”

The Punch reports:

Igwe stated that the strike was also to protest against the refusal of the Nigerian Association of Road Transport Owners to implement the signed collective bargaining agreement with the petroleum tanker drivers.

NUPENG alleged that the union’s call for a stakeholders’ meeting in the oil and gas sector to address the situation had also been ignored.

Igwe said, “We have directed all members at the various depots to stop loading petroleum products for the next three days and all the branches in the country must also follow directive.”

The union said if nothing was done after Wednesday, to address the situation, it would be forced to embark on an indefinite strike.