Oil workers to go on strike from July 7

PENGASSAN has instructed its members around the country to abandon their duty posts from July 7 and proceed on a strike action.

The directive was sent in a memo dated July 4, and the planned action is expected to affect all oil installations, offices, sites and production facilities.

Four major PENGASSAN zones – Lagos, Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna – have been ordered to begin the sensitisation of its members on the details of the impending strike.

In a statement signed by its acting general secretary, Lumumba Okugbawa, PENGASSAN said the strike would affect all sub-sectors of the oil and gas industry in the country.

PENGASSAN blamed the proposed strike on the Federal Government’s inability to honour agreements contained in a May 12, 2016 communiqué.

The association had on June 19, threatened to shut the nation’s oil sector over the sack of some of its members.

Consequently, the union gave the federal government a seven-day ultimatum to intervene and avert a situation where it would direct oil workers to withdraw their services and shut down the sector.

Emmanuel Ojugbana, public relations officer (PRO) of PENGASSAN, had said, “Despite the agreement that employers should put on hold redundancy in the industry, some managements such as Fugro, Universal Energy, Frontier Services and Petrostuff went ahead to sack many of our members including key union officers and national officer.

“I want to reiterate our demands that the federal government and the concern organisations, including H15, IEME Chevron, Universal Energy, Chevron Contracts Tecon and Avion Oil and Fugro should resolve the critical industrial relation issues in their companies; particularly in the recent retrenchment in Fugro and Petrostuff should be reversed.

“Let us state unequivocally that industrial peace in the oil and gas sector will not be guaranteed if these issues, especially the retrenchment in Fugro, are not resolved within seven (7) days effective Monday, June 20, 2016.”

The seven-day ultimatum lapsed on Wednesday, June 27.