During its conflict with the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria in September, the Dangote Petroleum Refinery stopped paying the engineers' monthly salary. PENGASSAN stated that it is working with the Dangote Group to find a peaceful solution to the issue. Reports claim that the paychecks were stopped because many engineers refused to accept their redeployment to states including Zamfara, Borno, Benue, and Sokoto.
A coal mine in Benue, concrete road-building projects in Borno and Ebonyi states, and rice plantations in Kebbi, Niger, Sokoto, and Zamfara were among the places where people were taken, according to several workers who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the matter.
Many employees refused the redeployment, citing PENGASSAN's promises that the issue would be settled via communication, while a small number were said to have accepted it. It was discovered that the Dangote Group reduced the impacted employees' pay in October as a warning before withholding their salary entirely in November.
Our reporter was informed by a top Dangote Group official that the company would no longer compensate anyone who turned down the redeployment offers. The impacted employees referred to the non-payment of their salaries as "victimization," but the official, who did not want his name to appear in print because he was not authorized to discuss the issue, questioned why the company should continue to pay people who had declined the offered alternative placements.
"Those whose employment was terminated were offered the chance to work in our other projects, including coal mines, concrete road building, and rice mills. Everyone who agreed has begun working.
"Will a newspaper continue to pay an employee's salary if it terminates their employment and even goes out of its way to provide alternative employment, but the employee is not interested in utilizing the alternative employment?" the official asked.
Remember that in September, PENGASSAN shut down oil and gas facilities due to claims that 800 refinery employees had been sacked for offering to join the union. The Dangote refinery, however, described the action as a reorganization and said that it only fired a small number of employees who were undermining the establishment.
Until the Federal Government stepped in and ordered the relocation of the impacted workers, the closure resulted in losses in oil and gas output across the country and contributed to a decline in electricity generation.
The Dangote Group's Ikeja headquarters invited the fired engineers to pick up their letters in October. One of the letters that our correspondent saw was labeled "Offer of Trainee Engagement" and was written on Dangote Projects Limited letterhead.
It says, in part: "We are pleased to engage you as Engineer Trainee (Mechanical Engineering) for the coal project we are executing at Okpokwu, Benue State, based on your performance at the assessment and subsequent interviews held with you." The following requirements will apply to this engagement: After receiving this letter, you will report to your workplace within 14 days.
"You will receive both classroom instruction and practical training in the building, commissioning, and management of our coal project in Okpokwu, Benue State." Over the course of two years, your training will be examined on a regular basis. Reports on your learning and development will be expected of you. The training's goal is to provide you with the abilities you need to assume a more responsible role within the company.
Concerns over the posting, particularly to locations thought to be security hotspots, were voiced by several engineers. "The first problem with the re-employment is that the letter does not include an address to report to. In the states where we were assigned, there was no office to report to. Secondly, certain areas are hotspots for security. Thirdly, the letter states that your employment would be terminated if you don't report within 14 days; however, no office address was provided, and when we looked on Google Maps, they weren't there.
Since there isn't an office in those states to report to, accepting the letters would essentially be our own way of ending our employment. In essence, PENGASSAN has instructed us not to accept the letters.
Festus Osifo, the president of PENGASSAN, stated at a conference last week that the union was still working with the Dangote refinery to find a solution. "We have been having a lot of conversations with them since our last national industrial action, but the issues are not fully resolved," Osifo stated. Many issues remain unresolved.
The NEC made the decision that, yeah, let's carry on with that process by pressing those concerns, having a conversation to find solutions, and including all of our social partners and stakeholders. And we really hope and pray that these problems will be settled at the table.
On Sunday, a top management official informed our reporter that while PENGASSAN was free to seek what it wanted, the corporation was also free to make judgments that were best for its operations. "PENGASSAN has the right to inquire. We cannot deny people the chance to ask whatever questions they may have. However, we also have the right to express our opinions," the official stated.
A few engineers bemoaned how things had turned out. They said that there was "an agreement that they would send us to oil and gas companies owned by Dangote."They claim that at first, it was decided to pay their wages until the problem was fixed.
However, we observed a decrease in our October wages. While others were paid for November, we were not. That is obviously victimization. Dangote was supposed to continue paying us until the issue was settled, but it appears that they have already broken the agreement, they said.
While PENGASSAN continues to urge for a negotiated solution to avoid another statewide shutdown, the impacted engineers said they are now forced to choose between losing their jobs and accepting deployments they view as risky and irregular.
The outcome of continuing negotiations between the union and the Dangote Group will now determine how the conflict is resolved because both sides are certain about their viewpoints.