Strike looms as NUPENG’s meeting with offshore firm ends in deadlock

PORT-HARCOURT—NIGERIA Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, yesterday, placed members nationwide on a red alert for industrial action after a meeting with the OES and Deep Sea oil firm, an oil exploratory company working for Chevron Nigeria Limited, over the sack of over 300 members ended in deadlock. The Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment had on Monday waded into the dispute between the union and the offshore firm operating in Rivers and Bayelsa States in effort to stop the planned action. It was gathered that the meeting ended in deadlock as the company was said to have insisted that the workers remained sacked. The workers were allegedly sacked eight months into their two years contractual agreement because they opted to join the union. A source at the meeting told Vanguard that the Ministry officials were left speechless as the firm insisted that the time the workers were expected to re-apply had expired and that nobody could make the management to change its mind. Speaking on the development, President of NUPENG, Prince Williams Akporeha, said it appeared that only the NNPC could stop the matter from degenerating into a nationwide industrial crisis as the Ministry of Labour was unable to make the management of the company to do the needful. He said: “It is true that the meeting ended in deadlock and the management had insisted that the workers remained sacked for joining the strike.