The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria and the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers have threatened to embark on strike if Federal government does not rescind its decision to register employees in the oil sector on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS).
The unions made their grievance known in a letter addressed to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva.
The letter, dated June 19, 2020, was jointly signed by the General Secretaries of PENGASSAN and NUPENG, Lumumgba Okugbawa and Olawale Afolabi, respectively.
The unions worry that the IPPIS platform discountenanced the peculiarities of the oil and gas sector with regards to collective bargaining agreement and approved pay structure between the unions and the Federal Government.
The statement reads in part: “We reiterate that industrial peace in the sector cannot be guaranteed if the salaries of our members are stopped or if the implementation is carried out unilaterally without our input.”
Afolabi informed that unions are yet to fix date for the planned industrial action as they hoped that government will eventually find reason with them.
If the unions go ahead and carry out its threat, Nigerians will be experiencing its first ever fuel scarcity during the COVID-19 era which translate to more hardship for citizens.
Their threat is coming about the same time when the health workers went on strike, although the strike had been called off.
