THE Zonal Council of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Warri, warned yesterday that it will cripple both the downstream and upstream of the sector if the Globestar/Acergy fails to stop alleged anti-human and anti-labour activities against workers by the company.

Comrade Williams Akporeha, Warri Zonal Council Chairman of NUPENG said in Warri that the union would not hesitate to call all its members to down tools to protest what it described as "slave treatment".

According to him, "The slave labour activities of Globestar/Acergy must be stopped forthwith.

Comrade Akporeha said that Globestar/Acergy, an oil company has been operating in the Niger Delta region for the past 20 years with a workforce of about 250 workers, but, lamented that the workers who have been on the pay roll of the oil company for about 20 years were being badly treated".

"Our members in Globestar/Acergy are working without a working condition of service, this situation is an aberration as far as oil operations are concerned in Nigeria," the Union leader said.

In spite of the unacceptable position in the operation of Globestar/Acergy Oil Company, the situation is made worse by the continued denial of the workers their recognized labour rights by the management of the company.

The oil company, he stated has been keeping the workers in a perpetual status of casual workers for upward of 20 years now, adding the workers work in the offshore operations for a continued period of three months with just one period of time-off.

"This is compounded by the fact that the workers are not even paid in their period of time off after three months of hard work in the sea," he said.

Comrade Akporeha said, "The Globestar offshore workers of NUPENG are already on strike and we are asking that the management come to the aid of the workers and start meaningful discussion with the union, otherwise, the Zone shall be constrained to mobilize its members to go on strike in solidarity with them."

"The strike is going to cut across the informal and the formal sector of the union, by that we are talking about the downstream and the upstream, which involves petroleum marketing and even at this point we might ask that production should be tampered with", he started.