In a statement which was signed by the groups public relations officer, Emmanuel Ojugbana, and released over the weekend, PENGASSAN alleged that oil workers were being retrenched from their jobs despite an agreement reached by the Ministry of Labor and oil companies to stop retrenchment exercises in the industry for now.
The group has given the Federal government a seven-day ultimatum starting from today June 20th, to wade into the matter or face total strike action. Part of their statement reads
“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. As a major stakeholder in the oil and gas industry, we are again calling on the NAPIMS to put in place a clear policy statement against frequent redundancy plans by operators under the guise of fluctuating crude oil prices.”