A democracy inclined Non-Governmental
organization-HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA[HURIWA] has alerted
the two unions in the nation's crude oil and petroleum sector-PENGASAN AND
NUPENG that their continuous breach of public trust by embarking on meaningless
and endless industrial actions resulting in concomitant non-availability and
artificial scarcity of petroleum products by dealers will sound the death knell
on the little credibility left of them in the minds of the majority of
patriotic Nigerians.
The Rights group has
therefore urged the unions to review their collective bargaining strategy to
tailor with global best practices and avoid the consistent mass infliction of
hardship and social hysteria on the general public especially towards each
major religious festivities. HURIWA has called on the two unions to call off
the on-going strike in the interest of the general and peace loving public who
are already weighed down heavily by the seemingly consistent armed
terrorist attacks by the Northern based banned armed Islamic extremists and
also economically impoverished by the dwindling value of the national
currency.
Specifically, the
petroleum and natural gas senior staff association of Nigeria [PENGASSAN] and
the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and natural gas workers[NUPENG] recently
embarked on a three days warning strike to compel the passage of the pending
Petroleum Industrial Bill [PIB] and other sundry industrial demands relating to
their members' welfare and terms of engagement.
But the HUMAN RIGHTS
WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA [HURIWA] which stated that industrial action
such as strike is a fundamental right of workers but added that the resort to
such extreme measure by union leaders/members must follow strict discretionary
standards which must comply with global best practices rather than the current
incessant abuse of industrial strike by the two petroleum unions almost on
daily basis even over an issue such as the function within the legislative
purview of the National Assembly just as the Rights group affirmed that the
current strike which has gravely incapacitated and crippled economic activities
and has exacerbated fuel hoarding by dealers of the products
all across the major cities around the country in a bid to make quick profits
is immoral and outrageous.
HURIWA in the media
statement signed jointly by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko
and the National Media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf accused the
leaderships of NUPENG and PENGASSAN of profiting from their collective unleashing
of largely unmerited and wanton punishment of the general public by constantly
embarking on irrelevant strike actions to in some ways help their cronies who
are the fuel marketers to access the fast lane of milking dry the already
dried pockets of the suffering masses of Nigeria.
The Rights group also
carpeted the Federal Government for always standing by and doing nothing to nip
in the bud such meaningless and reckless industrial actions not through
muzzling of freedom of association but rather through a democratic and
legally allowed process of constructive dialogue mechanisms. ''It appears like
certain forces within government are benefitting also from the frequent strike
actions in the heavily corrupt petroleum sub-sector of the economy because
facts have emerged to show that majority of the companies that are running the
petroleum products dealership around the country are controlled by top federal
and state government functionaries. Not long ago the Ekiti state governor Ayo
Fayose revealed that the embattled state house of assembly speaker is allegedly
a leading petroleum marketer in the state capital. It is also a fact that
most national and state legislators and cabinet level ministers have large stakes
in majority of the petroleum marketing companies''.
HURIWA stated further:
''Why there are constant strike actions in the last couple of months is
that there is a disconnect between the Federal Ministry of Labour and
productivity and the Nigerian workers and this organized confusion has thrown
up a compromised mechanism of selecting the leaderships of most trade unions
and these hierarchies are dominated by forces that are not pro-poor and
pro-people but rather persons with some clandestine economic and political
agenda meant to undermine the economic wellbeing of the well over 90 per cent
of the Nigerian population working in the informal sector and most of whom
do not belong to any of the so-called contraptions called registered trade
unions. The Labour sector must be reformed and the Nigerian people must take
their destiny in their hands and stop relying on these trade unions whose stock
in trade is to constantly trade off the collective interest of the general
public at the slightest opportunity of dialogue with government. Enough of
these shenanigans of constant reckless invocation of the strike provisions by
these shylocks.''
16/12/2014.
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