Daily Independent Online.
*
Wednesday, July 21, 2004.
Mobil workers plan new strike
By Bassey Udo
Snr
Correspondent, Abuja
At least 25 per cent
of crude oil production (about 500,000 barrels per day) may be disrupted if
workers of Mobil Producing Nigeria (MPN), the upstream subsidiary of the
American Exxon Mobil Corporation, make good their threat to withdraw their
services at the expiration of their ultimatum to the management on July 26.
They demand improved
conditions of service, accusing former Managing Director Mike Fry of
obstructing negotiations.
A union official said
in an interview in Abuja on Tuesday that Mobil is “an anti-labour company”.
He spoke before the
meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the National Union of
Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the Petroleum and Natural Gas
Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN).
Disputing claims that
Fry was instrumental to the large number of Nigerians on foreign assignments
during his tenure, he said those Nigerians were “working on Nigerian
projects paid for by Nigeria”.
According to him, it
was during Fry’s tenure that Mobil recorded the highest number of
expatriates in departments where there were several competent Nigerians with
the best qualifications available.
“During his
(Fry’s) tenure, the number of expatriates in the company doubled to 165,
representing 3 per cent of the total workforce. Yet, the salary of the
expatriates accounted for more than 45 per cent of the total salary bill,
against the 97 per cent of the Nigerian population, which accounted for only 55
per cent,” he explained.
After alleging that
the present management is trying to “cheat the workers in its
negotiations on their demands” and “trying to break the
unions”, the man urged new Chief Executive John Chaplain to take the
workers into confidence as “the resolution of the crisis would not be
achieved without their involvement”.
He reiterated the
threat of the workers to withdraw their services if the management fails to
address their grievances at the end of the ultimatum
In a similar
development on Tuesday, both NUPENG and PENGASSAN urged the government to
urgently address the problems of crude supplies to the four refineries to solve
the problem of fuel supply.
NUPENG National
President Brown Ogbeifun said at the meeting in Abuja that the continued short
supply of crude to the refineries is one of the major reasons problems in the
downstream sector have lingered.
Ogbeifun who, last
week, led a team from both NUPENG and PENGASSAN to tour the refineries in
Kaduna, Warri and Port Harcourt to assess their functional state, noted:
“If all the refineries were to have adequate supplies of crude, and they
are made to operate to their optimal capacities, the nation would be having
supplies of at least 17-18 million litres of products daily to take care of
domestic demand. At least this would go along way to helping solve the crisis
in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry”.
He stressed the
importance of the government ensuring best industry practices that conform with
the International Labour organisation (ILO) conventions, adding that it is the
responsibility of the government to guarantee security for oil facilities to
forestall disruption.
Ogbeifun accused the
chief executives of some oil companies of frustrating efforts made to achieve
industrial peace, saying their insensitive posturing on workers’ welfare
make it difficult for an amicable resolution of disagreements.
