Workers in the oil and gas sector on Saturday vowed to go ahead with their planned strike if companies in the downstream sector fail to recall their sacked members. The workers spoke in Lagos under the aegis of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG.

Alhaji Tokunbo Korodo, President, South-West branch of NUPENG, told the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN that the companies had continued to sack their members and refused them to be unionised.

“The management of M.R.S. oil and gas sacked 36 of our members because they were unionised,” he said.

He said that the management of Shell Petroleum Company through its subsidiary SNEPCO, also sacked 15 of its workers without paying their entitlements. Korodo said it was regrettable that the companies failed to respect the Nigerian constitution that guarantees freedom of association.

He said that the Nigeria Agip Oil Company, NAOC, had also concluded arrangements to sack more workers “two months after it laid off hundreds of workers.”

“The number of people they sacked two months ago has populated the already unemployed market and this is contrary to the Federal Government’s efforts to curb unemployment. The situation is sad because the union had agreed with the management of Agip that workers will not be sacked again till further notice. Another issue is that workers in LFA oil and gas, a subsidiary of Chevron Nigeria Limited was asked to join the National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW,” he said.

According to him, the LFA ordered the workers to join NURTW instead of NUPENG when they insisted on belonging to a union.