Labour ministry too weak to check oil coys’excesses – NUPENG

Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers ( NUPENG ) has said that the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment was not making concrete efforts to check the protracted labour issues concerning the operations of the multinational oil and gas companies in the country.
The union is also accusing Dutch oil giant, Shell, of pioneering the practice of casualisation and precarious work in the Nigerian oil and gas industry and has stopped employing workers on permanent basis for the past 20 years.
In its presentation to the ILO Committee on the Application of Standard signed by President of the Union, Comrade William Akporeha, NUPENG said the Ministry appeared overwhelmed by the ever changing and manipulative policies in the various Human Relations departments of these stakeholders “who never wanted to halt precarious work claiming that their role is only advisory.” The Union said as at today, SHELL alone has close to 2000 contractors with over 20,000 precarious workers from their three subsidiaries of SNEPCo, SPDC and SNG, adding that there is no single direct staff member of NUPENG in SHELL Nigeria.
NUPENG said the management of Shell continuously frustrated union activities in their contracting companies which run their contractual policies, ranging from 6 to 12 months.
The union said “the struggle against this form of workers exploitation is almost three decades old, and it has been a herculean task, membership of the union has been seriously depleted, indecent work entrenched resulting into upsurge in crime and social dislocations and defiant behaviours.” NUPENG stated that the International Oil Companies, through various policies and practices entrenched anti-labour/union organising situation in the Nigeria oil and gas industry, include refusal to allow unionisation of Contract and service contracts workers.
It said the policies also include “fragmentation of Contracts into thousands to frustrate the efforts of the union in organising precarious workers, making worker to sign pre engagement non membership of union, and this makes precarious workers dread associating with the union, treating labour relations issues with contempt and disdain to the extent of refusing implementation on rulings of Industrial Arbitration Panels whenever it goes against the company