02 August 2017, Sweetcrude, Lagos – President of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, President, Comrade Igwe Achese, says sacked workers in an oil servicing firm in Rivers State were being owed over three billion naira terminal benefits.
This Is the target of a coming strike planned y NUPENG.
Addressing journalists in Abuja after a National Executive Council meeting, Comrade Achese said NUPENG planned to begin a strike in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, over a dispute with Assets Management Company of Nigeria, AMCON.
He said the strike was inevitable because of three billion naira terminal benefits allegedly owed some sacked oil sector workers.
Mr. Achese said that those affected were the former staff of Seawolf Drilling Services, an oil servicing firm, in Rivers. He said the management of AMCOM was being lackadaisical in meeting its obligation of settling the workers.
According to him, more than 300 workers of the oil firm were disengaged unceremoniously in 2013.
The retrenchment of the workers followed the company’s indebtedness to a commercial bank to the tune of N25 billion which led to AMCOM taking over the assets and liabilities of Seawolf.
The workers, who are affiliated members of NUPENG, have been asking AMCOM to pay their severance package without success, he said.
Achese said NUPENG had given two weeks grace to the federal government and the Ministry of Labour and Employment to intervene.
According to him, the union had notified the federal government in a letter that if it failed to address the issues after two weeks, it would call out its members to withdraw their services in the FCT.
He said that it had also directed its members across the country to, in solidarity with the struggle, dress in red and hoist green leaves on their vehicles for the next two weeks.
