Leadership (Abuja)
7 October 2007
The National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas workers (NUPENG) and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) have given a fourteen-day ultimatum starting from last Friday to the management of Conoil Plc to reverse all anti-union measures taken by the management of Belbop Nigeria Limited.
Belbop Nigeria Limited is a subsidiary of Conoil Plc whose job is to recruit labour for the upstream oil company, Conoil Producing Limited and its sister downstream petroleum marketing business Conoil Plc.
According to NUPENG and PENGASSAN, the organization has frustrated all efforts at peaceful negotiation on labour and management issues and every intervention of the Federal Ministry of Labour towards a lasting industrial relation in the company.
PENGASSAN and NUPENG also alleged that Belbop Nigeria Limited and Conoil Plc not only engage in unethical distribution of redundancy letters via courier services to unionized members, but have indulged in coercion of members to collect benefits calculated only by the management without any imput from the unions as well as refusing to implement all the agreements and communiqué reached with the union.
Consequently, the unions have called on the Secretary to the Federal Government, Ministers of Labour and Energy to urgently intervene to avoid the escalation of the matter into industrial crisis adding that the unions would not compromise on any attempt by Belbop and Conoil to undermine the rule of law, due process and official directives from government agencies.
Meanwhile, the Unions have directed all its zones and unit offices to sustain the on-going embargo on Conoil operations nationwide and reiterated its resolve to embark on nationwide solidarity industrial action in sympathy of its members.
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