commence
The proposed strike by the NUPENG/PENGASSAN union in Chevron has been scheduled to commence on Wednesday June 16.
A statement by the Joint Executive Council (JEC) noted that the strike earlier scheduled for 7th June had to be rescheduled because of the Democracy Day holiday on Monday June 14.
Other reasons given for the shift in date is the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment (FML&E) scheduled meeting for Tuesday June 15 to address the issues raised by the Unions.
The JEC statement dated June 13 insists that the strike will commence on Wednesday June 16 unless the Chevron Management signs a communique (agreement) with the Unions’ (PENGASSAN and NUPENG) National bodies on Tuesday June 15.
“Even a ruling by the FML&E is not sufficient to stop the strike from going ahead on Wednesday as planned because this same Management had not respected previous rulings of the Ministry.”
Unresolved issues necessitating the action includes:
• The recent arbitrary and unlawful disengagement of three Nigerian workers – Bukola Sola-Adebawo, James Ukachukwu and John Ayeni
• Illegal deductions of workers’ benefits since 2012 and failure to refund excess deductions in terminal benefits.
• 2018 annual vacation not taken and vacation allowance for contract employees rolled over to new contracts including those personnel that were optimized from service since June 2019.
• Refusal to negotiate collective bargaining agreements for manpower contracts employees and new CBA for IEME contract.
• Refusal to carry contract workers in staff bus
• Closure of redundancy discussions for affected contract employees since May 2020. Also, the payment of 2.5% salary arrears for 2019 optimized staff and Elper Oilfield Engineering Nig. Ltd. 2013 EOC are still outstanding.
• Victimization of Ykish and Muyideen manpower contract personnel for joining the Union and apprehension that IEME contracts are to be closed out in March 2021 without following due process or engaging the unions to reach agreement.
• Ergonomic issue for contract employees working from home.
Efforts to get the reaction of Chevron failed as our contact who promised to send in the Company’s reaction failed to do so by the time of filing this report.
