The National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) says it has not shifted grounds on its demand for the reinstatement of the 94 oil workers recently sacked at Qua Iboe oil fields.
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Mr Harry Bassey, National Public Relations Officer of NUPENG, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Eket, that the massive disengagement of its members was carried out without consultation with the union.
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Bassey said that the disengagement of the workers violated the terms of the subsisting Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the Union, Management of Mobil and their contractors.
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He said that the affected workers were locked out and denied access to their duty posts after performing their jobs the previous day, only to be informed on telephone by their supervisors that they had been disengaged.
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“The battle is still on and I can say categorically that we have a good case, the management of Mobil had intervened to resolve the crisis by inviting us for talks in Lagos and asking? us to come back to Eket to find a workable solution.
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“It was resolved that a six-man committee be set up to review the matter and make recommendations to resolve the issues in contention and until the process is concluded, our position is that the affected workers are still on duty,” Bassey said.
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The labour leader further said that the union recognised the rights of the employers of labour to ‘hire and fire,’ but that the union owed its members a duty to ensure that the process complied with existing legislation and the terms of the contract.
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He maintained that under the present circumstance, where the workers neither committed any offence nor were found wanting in the discharge of their duties, they could only be laid off under the redundancy option with their entitlements paid.
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NAN? gathered that more than 100 workers were affected, but a total of 94 contract workers at the Qua Iboe oil fields who were members of NUPENG were disengaged in September in a downsizing exercise in the operations of Mobil.
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Public Affairs sources in Mobil declined comments on the development and insisted that the oil firm had no direct responsibility as the affected workers were hired by contractors working for Mobil.(NAN)
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