THE SELFISH MOTIVE OF NNPC WORKERS STRIKE – by Frank Ofili

A friend who works for NNPC sent the below to me last night. He said those are the real reasons for the strike action embarked upon by NNPC workers. The letter is apparently a response by the leaders of NNPC unit of the two labour unions (NUPENG and PENGASSAN) to their members.

I could not ascertain the authenticity of this dispatch, but the person who sent it to me is an NNPC employee, and he said it was sent to his mail inbox from their union leadership

Please read on

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Dear Comrades,

Your observations and all the questions raised are very valid. The issue here is the lack of engagement of stakeholders in the entire unbundling process. The GMD proceeded to announce the unbundling of the Corporation to the press without engaging the Unions. As it is, nobody knows the details or the blueprint of the proposed structure.

Specific labour issues that we need to discuss are as follows:

1. Staff job security: We need to be sure that none of our members will lose their jobs in the unbundled NNPC.

2. Pension: Management has been using our pension contributions to pay retired staff against the provisions of the pension Act. Also, pension deductions made from Staff salaries have not been remitted to the pension fund for the past four months. Furthermore, Management has started deducting 8% instead of 7.5% as pension deductions. Lastly, Management has deliberately failed to inject funds into the pension fund to bridge the gap as agreed with the Unions.

3. Salaries, Benefits and Compensation: What is the proposed salary structure in the unbundled NNPC? Will the Upstream staff earn upstream salary different from the Downstream staff? What happens to our conditions of service? What about our entry point/salary harmonization?

The above are some of the pertinent labour related issues that must be discussed and agreed before the unbundling commences in order to protect our members. Let us make it abundantly clear that the Unions are not against the unbundling exercise, we just want to have a level of comfort that we would not be adversely affected.

Solidarity Forever!

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Now, let me attempt to respond to the issues raised in the dispatch one by one, but before then it is pertinent to mention that there is nowhere in the world an employer would take permission from his employees before embarking on a re-organisation intended to make his organisation more competitive. 

POINT 1: My question to my friend is: would he prefer that idle or incompetent employees who are contributing nothing whatsoever to NNPC be left intact to continue receiving remuneration for their incompetence? Everywhere in the world organisations carry out re-organisation in order to reposition them for greater performance. In view of what we all know about NNPC, there is no doubt that the corporation needs to be re-organised, especially at this point in time. Re-organisation sometimes comes with job losses. It is not new and it cannot be helped. What is important is that a need exists to re-organise. If that is true of NNPC, then my friend and his colleagues are only being selfish.

POINT 2: For God’s sake, retired employees’ pension is supposed to be paid from the employees’ pension fund managed by their chosen Pension Fund Administrator. That is the whole essence of the Pension Reform Act 2004 (later amended in 2014). Where else are their pension supposed to be paid from?

If my friend is talking about gratuity here, then let me inform him that while the Pension Reform Act does not expressly abolish gratuity, it also does not make it mandatory either. I am aware that the Federal Government has stopped paying gratuity to federal civil servants since the inception of the Pension Reform Act 2004 (amended in 2014). So why should NNPC workers who are, to all intents and purposes, federal employees be treated differently? May be this is one of the areas NNPC has been losing money.

I do however appreciate the fact that it is good and desirable for eligible employees to be paid gratuity by their employer at the point of exiting employment, but insofar as it is a matter of industry practice, it cannot supersede the law of the land. I opine that industry practice (as agreed in Collective Bargaining Agreement) cannot and should not supersede the Pension Reform Act.

On the question of NNPC Management deducting 8% of employees monthly gross salary instead of 7.5%, perhaps my friend is not aware of the provisions of the Pension Reform (Amendment) Act 2014. In July 2014 then President Goodluck Jonathan signed the Pension Reform (Amendment) Act into law. The Act provides that with effect from July 2014, salaried workers should thenceforth make a minimum contribution of 8% of their monthly gross salary (Basic, Housing and Transport Allowances) to their Retirement Savings Account (RSA), while their employer makes a minimum contribution of 10% to the employees RSA. So what is my friend talking about? If NNPC workers/Management have not been contributing 8% and 10% respectively since 2014, then they are, in connivance with NNPC Management, in violation of the Pension Reform (Amendment) Act 2014. The Act is still subsisting.

POINT 3 simply shows the inherent selfishness of these NNPC workers. They are more concerned with what they will get instead of what NNPC and Nigeria has been losing over the years to corruption and inefficiency in NNPC. So because of what they will get, they have no qualms whatsoever shutting down the oil and gas industry, thus putting 170 million Nigerians through more hardship? This is in spite of the fact that they are aware that oil is the mainstay, if not the only one, of our economy. How much more selfish can they get? And these are the same people responsible for the waste, inefficiency and corruption in NNPC.