NUPENG ORDERS IMMEDIATE SHUT DOWN OF TOTAL!

- The order came as a result of Total terminating appointments of some workers for joining union The Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG) workers on Thursday, December 5, ordered stoppage of loading activities at Total Nig. Ltd. depots nationwide over termination of workers appointment. Workers block entrance of Total Blending Plant with two trailers. The south-west chairman of the union, Alhaji Tokunbo Korodo, in a statement said the management of Total has been resisting the unionisation of workers under its contract programme in Lagos, Kaduna and Koko in Delta blending plants. The chairman said that the management of Total had moved further to terminate those workers who had joined the union in spite of the union efforts to resolve the issue amicably. Korodo said: “In view of this, the union has directed all workers in Total downstream to stop work until the management allows workers to unionise and slave labour introduced are cancelled. “This action should commence immediately.” According to our report, angry workers have blocked the entrance of Total Blending Plant, Apapa's gate with two trailers. The workers were seen with various placards with inscriptions: “Nigerians enslaving Nigerians in Nigeria, “Total and Jomog want to sack us because we joined NUPENG”. The zonal vice-chairman, south-west chapter of NUPENG, Mr. Rotimi Benjamin, said that the management of Total had summoned the union to a meeting to resolve the issue. Benjamin, however, said that the union would not go back on its action until all the issues were resolved. Meanwhile, pump prices of fuel may become high as the importation of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) into Nigeria is to gulp extra cost of over N2.369 billion per day from federal government and marketers. This came as oil prices hit their highest levels since July 2015 with Brent reaching $58.37 and $55.24, before paring gains on the strong dollar. Buoyed by this, the federal government is already mulling total deregulation of the downstream sector. ***prbxselfnetwork***.