BY VICTOR AHIUMA-YOUNG
AS indication emerged yesterday that the work-to-rule action by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASAN, in the downstream sector of the industry was beginning to hinder lifting of petroleum products, a meeting of major oil marketers, leaders of the oil workers among other stakeholders has been scheduled for today in Abuja, by the Federal Government to find a way out of the logjam.

Following this development, an earlier meeting between the Labour Minister, Chief Emeka Wogu and PENGASSAN, scheduled for yesterday, had been collapsed into today’s meeting fixed for 2 pm.

Vanguard gathered that those expected at today’s meeting included Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, MOMAN, PENGASSAN and their National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG counterpart, among others.

PENGASSAN had Monday commenced a work-to-rule action to protest planned lay-offs, by members of MOMAN over increasing harsh business environment, Vanguard gathered.

Chief Wogu had summoned PENGASSAN to Abuja for a meeting today over the  “work- to- rule- strike to prevent the action from snowballing into a national strike.

Prior to the work-to-rule strike, PENGASSAN had petitioned the Minister of Labour and Productivity, Emeka Wogu and his petroleum counterpart, Diezani Alison-Madueke, drawing their attention to the planned mass sack of workers by operators in the industry, and called for their immediate intervention.

President of PENGASSAN, Babatunde Ogun, had on Sunday told Vanguard that the industrial action was to “get employers in the industry, including Total, Mobil, Oando, M.R.S., Conoil Forte Oil among others to jettison their plans to lay-off workers”, a development he argued, would compound already over-bloated labour market, and further increase poverty in the economy.

According to him: “This is to protest the on-going disengagement in the sector. The workers refused to be made sacrificial lamb as a result of the problems that operators in the industry are encountering. Further industrial action will follow as events unfold. Letters have been sent to all the branches as well as managements of these companies on the planned actions,” Ogun said.