Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, yesterday in Warri, Delta State, issued a 7- day ultimatum to the Federal Government on the unresolved issues affecting Chevron contract workers over anti-labour practices
The union in a statement by its President, Igwe Achese, warned that if the Federal Government failed to intervene in the unresolved anti – labour practices of Chevron on the expiration of the ultimatum, it would commence a nationwide strike immediately.
The statement said it had watched with keen interest the resolution reached with Chevron and the Federal Ministry of Labour which unfortunately had not stopped was an ongoing termination of the jobs of its members.
According to the union, despite the intervention of the Federal Ministries of Labour and Petroleum Resources, Chevron and its labour contractors had not deemed it fit to honour the resolutions reached at all its meetings.
It lamented some of the unresolved issues included job categorization of members who have workers as contract staff for over 25 years.
The statement noted that “Chevron Nigeria Limited in their bid to deplete the numerical strength of NUPENG, introduced an obnoxious criteria of using remuneration to determine which union the contract workers should belong to in the company. Other issues include the massive retirement of members by management of the various Chevron Labour Contractors without due process.”
The union stated that some of the workers transited from the former six contractors to the new 16 were not paid their full entitlements as documented by NAPIMS and were, therefore, short paid. NUPENG added that all agreements reached with the Federal Ministry of Labour were reneged upon by Chevron, noting it even refused to appear in a meeting convened by the Group Managing Director of the NNPC in Abuja last week.
The union added that the company had begun “secret recruitment of workers to phase out NUPENG members and that will be resisted at all cost.”
We call on the Federal Government, and its agencies, the Federal Ministry of Labour, NNPC to intervene or face a nationwide strike at the expiration of the 7- day ultimatum. The Union will not issue any fresh ultimatum over this matter.
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