The leadership of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) has expressed disappointment over the anti-labour activities by the management of Indorama Eleme Petrochemicals Company in Rivers State, Nigeria.
As a result the union has expressed readiness to picket the company unless it desists from the anti-union activities whereby they tried to clamp down against unionism in the company.
Its general secretary, Comrade Afolabi Olawale, in the protest letter called on the federal, Rivers State governments, security agencies and the general public to join the union in convincing the company to toe the line of peace by resolving the conflict in order to avoid confrontation with NUPENG.
“NUPENG wishes to urgently draw the attention of the government, security agencies and the public in general to the anti-labour, crude and unscrupulous machinations of the management of Indorama Eleme Petrochemicals Company in Rivers State.”
According to Afolabi, for several years until the middle of last year, several workers working in the Petrochemical plant have been working under very indecent and precarious conditions of Labour/ Service contracts with strict denial to join the trade union of their choice. After several years of struggles which finally culminated in union/management meeting at leadership levels held in Lagos in November last year, an agreement was reached to allow these workers to be organised into the union and recognition extended to them by management.’’
