The contract staff branch of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) in Mobil Producing Nigeria (MPN), Eket, Akwa Ibom hs withdrawn the services of its members in an effort to draw attention to “casualisation” at the Qua Iboe Oil fields.
Sahara Reporters investigations show that more than 400 contract workers at the Qua Iboe Oil Export Terminal operated by Mobil have remained casual workers for an average of 10 years.
It was discovered that in a scheme to circumvent and abuse the nation’s labour laws which stipulate that nobody should do a job on adhoc basis for more than 5 years, the oil company collaborates with labour contractors to use the same workers to do the same jobs for extended period of 15 years or more.
Workers told SaharaReporters that a clique recycles them among various labour contractors. They schedule a job to last for two years, after which the worker is assigned to another contractor to avoid counting the cumulative years.
“It is sad that Mobil, which is an affiliate of ExxonMobil can come here and connive with Nigerians to abuse our labour laws and enslave Nigerians in their own country,” Samuel Ntuk, who has spent 16 years as a casual worker at the Qua Iboe oil fields, told Sahara Reporters.
The workers are protesting delays in the negotiations for the 2008-2010 Collective Bargaining Agreement and have raised alarm over plans to sack over 200 oil workers, mostly union leaders.
Peter Akpenka, Contract Workers Branch Chairman of PENGASSAN in MPN, was quoted in the media to have confirmed the withdrawal of services last week.
“Our intention is to get the management of Mobil Producing Nigeria to change their attitude toward the welfare of the workforce, so we have to tell our members to stay away from work in the mean time,” he said.
He stressed that the “casualisation” of labour in the oil industry has assumed alarming proportions, adding, “We have to insist on a level playing ground for all categories of workers.”
Said Akpenka: “We are asking for equity in the work place, which means equal work for equal pay. A situation where our members do the bulk of the work and get 20 percent of what other Nigerians with the same qualification get is unacceptable.”
He said it was regrettable that rather than fast-tracking negotiations on the belated Agreements scheduled to take effect between 2008 and 2010, the management of MPN was planning a sack
of Union leaders. He said they got wind of the impending sack last week when union members were locked out of the work place at the Qua Iboe Terminal, and that they had taken up the matter with the National Secretariat of PENGASSAN.
Public Affairs officials of the oil firm would not speak on the record, maintaining that the workers do not have any employment offer from Mobil.
More than 1,500 casual workers are engaged by MPN at the Oil fields and offices in Nigeria through labour contractors who supply the American oil giant with a steady stream of cheap labour.
MPN operates the 960,000 barrels per day capacity Qua Iboe Oil export terminal in Ibeno, near Eket in Akwa Ibom in a joint venture with Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, but industry sources who confided in SaharaReporters said that over 1.5 million barrels are produced daily at the facility, undeclared.
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