Nigerian oil under threat
2005-03-21 16:13
Lagos, Nigeria - Nigeria's two oil unions are threatening a series of strikes beginning April 11 to protest what they deem unfair labour practices, the union leaders said Monday.
"The strike is going to be total and involve all sectors of the oil industry," said Peter Akpatason, president of the Blue-Collar National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, known as Nupeng.
The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, or Pengassan, also was planning to strike.
Strikes or threats of strikes by Nigerian oil unions often affect crude oil prices on the international market.
However, such threats often fail to have any significant impact on production or loading of crude oil at the export terminals.
Nigeria is the fifth largest exporter of oil to the United States.
The strikes are planned to start April 11 and will last for three days. "Thereafter, we will meet again to decide what to do," Akpatason said.
Brown Ogbeifun, president of Pengassan, said the strikes were planned to protest what the unions see as several anti-labour practices by oil companies operating in Nigeria.
He said these included layoffs of Nigerian oil workers and the use of casual labour and expatriate workers.
The unions are also protesting a pension reform program launched by the government under which deductions are being made from the workers' salaries but without a named manager of the funds.
"Before you deduct my money, I must know who my fund manager is," Ogbeifun told Dow Jones Newswires on Monday.
Akpatason said leaders of the two unions are mobilising their members this week for the strike, beginning in the Warri Zone on Monday.
The team will meet with their members in the Lagos Zone on Wednesday, before moving up north to Kaduna on Friday.
- AP