Nigeria Petroleum and Gas News

Oil workers in the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), have threatened to embark on strike, citing moves by management to embark on staff rationalisation and the restructuring of the agency as some of their reasons.
Management of the agency yesterday held a meeting with PENGASSAN and NUPENG workers in its employ on how to resolve the matter amicably, as failure to do so may put the industry in जेओपर्डी
Although details of the yesterday meeting were not available at press time, a source told THISDAY that the parties did not arrive at any positive conclusion.
Speaking on the issue, Hammed Bulama Saidu, Chairman of PENGASSAN in the department, who is one of the staff, confirmed that the crux of the matter was the staff rationalisation plan and the current restructuring exercise going on in the agency , which he noted, do not augur well for staff.
According to him, when you are shrinking the department, you are as well killing the department and this means that staff would be negatively affected.
He said the unions have mapped out strategies to follow to protest the moves, adding that union members have all resolved to wear black, to drive home their point.
"Secondly, after being in black for some time and no action was taken, we can resort to the next action, and thereafter, we can go on a full blown strike, by then, we believe Nigerians will be well sensitised about the plights of the DPR workers.
"The group earlier recommended that the department was grossly understaffed, and that it should recruit more staff to cover the entire nation, but contrary to that, they decided to recruit a few and retrench the experienced ones, causing a sharp conflict with standard recommendation।
"Critically, the union executives were called to look at the issue and we have written to the management and explained to them but as it is, they have chosen to protect their own selfish interests by not addressing issues accordingly.
"We are addressing issues to the senior management level, involving the director and his immediate subordinate, but as far as the union is concerned, you cannot rationalise or further shrink management, thereby creating stagnation, demoralisation in the department when it is under staffed.
"The industry does not permit that, particularly with what is happening in the industry, it is not in the interest of Nigeria and that is why we are kicking against it," he said, expressing regret that "the National Assembly has failed to address the issue, a bill has been passed and it has gone through the first and second reading at the National Assembly, but till now, nobody is talking about the third reading," he said.