Oil workers issue seven-day ultimatum on Chevron crisis

Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) has issued a 7- day ultimatum to the Federal Government on unresolved issues affecting Chevron Contract Workers over anti-labour practices

Specifically, the union urged government to intervene in the unresolved anti – labour practices of chevron, saying it was giving a 7- day ultimatum from Monday, after which, it will embark on a nation-wide industrial action, if the issues are not resolved.

The union in a statement signed by its president Igwe Achese said, “it has watched with keen interest the resolution reached with the Union, Chevron and the Federal Ministry of Labour and yet there is an ongoing termination of the jobs of our members”.

It alleged that despite the intervention of the Federal Ministries of Labour and Petroleum Resources, Chevron and its labour contractors have not deemed it fit to honour the resolutions reached at all its meetings.

Besides, NUPENG explained that, “some of the unresolved issues include job categorization of our members who have workers as contract staff for over 25years. But 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 as enumerated by the union include; “the massive retirement of our members by the management of the various Chevron Labour Contractors without due process.

The union also alleged that some of the workers transited from the former 6 (Six) Contractors to the new sixteen Contractors were not paid their full entitlements as documented by NAPIMS and were therefore short paid.

“All agreements reached with the Federal Ministry of Labour were reneged by Chevron and that they even refused to appear in a meeting convened by the Group Managing Director of the NNPC in Abuja last week”, NUPENG said.

It also alleged that, the company has begun secret recruitment of workers in order to phase out its members, saying, the move will be resisted at all cost.

To this end, it called 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, adding that, it will not issue any fresh ultimatum over this matter.