The Dangote Petroleum Refinery has reportedly ceased paying the monthly salaries of engineers who were sacked in September following a heated industrial dispute with the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN).
The move comes as the affected workers rejected redeployment offers to other Dangote-owned projects located in various parts of the country, some of which they have described as “security hot zones.”
PENGASSAN, in a bid to avert a renewed nationwide industrial action, confirmed it is currently engaging the Dangote Group to resolve the protracted matter amicably.
The PUNCH gathered that the pay stoppage was a direct consequence of the engineers’ refusal to accept redeployment to alternative work sites.
The initial crisis in September arose after PENGASSAN shut down oil and gas facilities nationwide, alleging that 800 refinery workers were fired for volunteering to join the union. The refinery, however, insisted it only dismissed a few employees for “sabotaging the facility” during a “reorganisation” exercise.
Following Federal Government intervention, the affected workers were directed to be redeployed.
The alternative placements included jobs at: A coal mine in Benue State; Concrete road construction sites in Borno and Ebonyi states; Rice plants in Kebbi, Niger, Sokoto, and Zamfara states.
Many engineers rejected these placements, with one letter sighted by The PUNCH, titled ‘Offer of Trainee Engagement,’ posting an engineer as an ‘Engineer Trainee (Mechanical Engineering)’ for a coal project in Okpokwu, Benue State.
Speaking anonymously due to the sensitivity of the issue, one worker lamented the situation: “The issue with the re-employment is that, firstly, there’s no address to report to on that letter. No office to report to in the states we were posted to. Secondly, those are security hot zones.”
They added that the letter specified termination if they failed to report within 14 days, a condition the workers deemed impossible to meet.
A source said: “If we accept the letters, we are basically terminating our employment by ourselves because there’s no office in those states to report to. PENGASSAN has basically told us not to accept the letters. We should let them continue with their talks.”
The management of the Dangote Group confirmed that the company would no longer pay those who rejected the alternative placements.
A senior official, who requested anonymity, defended the decision against accusations of “victimisation” by the affected engineers, wondering why the company should continue paying individuals who refused job offers.
The company official said: “Those whose services were terminated were given an opportunity to work in our other projects, such as rice mills, concrete road construction, and coal mines. All those who accepted have started working.”
The official posed a rhetorical question to justify the move: “If a newspaper terminates the services of an employee, and if it even goes out of its way to provide alternative employment, but the employee is not interested in availing the alternative employment, will it keep paying his/her salary?”
The affected workers said the stoppage followed a slashing of their October wages, after which their November salaries were completely withheld, breaching an alleged earlier agreement to continue payments until the issue was resolved.
“But we noticed a reduction in our October salaries. We were not paid for November when others have been paid. That’s clear victimisation… it seems they have breached the agreement already,” one engineer stated.
The industrial action in September caused significant nationwide losses in oil and gas production and a drop in power generation before the Federal Government’s intervention.
PENGASSAN President, Festus Osifo, confirmed last week that the union is prioritising dialogue to end the deadlock, but maintained the union’s readiness to act if negotiations fail.
He said: “Since our last national industrial action, we have been engaging them in a lot of conversations, but the issues are not fully resolved… we hope and pray that these issues will be resolved at the table.”
He stressed the union’s preference for peaceful resolution: “These issues should be resolved in mere jaw-jaw so that we will not go back to Egypt. But as PENGASSAN, you know, we don’t shy away from doing what is right. But our preference is to get the subject resolved over the negotiation table.”
Meanwhile, a senior Dangote management officer maintained that while PENGASSAN has the right to make requests, the company also reserves its business liberty.
“They (PENGASSAN) have their privilege to ask. We can’t deny the opportunity to anyone to ask anything they wish. But we, too, have the privilege to state what we want,” the official noted.
Gorip Wushiba Habila