Truckers from a union representing gasoline tanker drivers ended late on Tuesday a strike at Nigeria’s Dangote oil refinery after Africa’s largest petroleum plant allowed employees to unionise.
The strike, which started Monday and drew assist from different unions in Nigeria and overseas, got here because the refinery confronted accusations of union-busting over its hiring of drivers to ship petrol to retailers.
“Since employees’ unionization is a proper according to the availability of the extant legal guidelines, the administration of Dangote Refinery and Petrochemicals agreed to the unionization of staff of Dangote Refinery,” a joint assertion stated.
That course of is to be accomplished by September 22 and no employee on the refinery is to be deprived consequently, the assertion shared on X by the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Pure Fuel Staff (NUPENG) added.
Earlier than final 12 months’s opening of the Dangote refinery, with a capability of 650,000 barrels per day, Nigeria needed to import virtually all its petrol regardless of being a serious oil producer.
Critics pointed to years of neglect and mismanagement of government-owned refineries.
The Dangote refinery has pushed down costs of petrol for shoppers whereas additionally shaking up long-entrenched gamers in Nigeria’s oil sector, marred by a long time of corruption.
Nevertheless it has additionally sparked monopoly fears because it turns into a robust participant backed by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote.
Final month, the refinery was set to deploy a fleet of 1000’s of vehicles powered by compressed pure gasoline to distribute its petrol nationwide, an initiative that has been delayed as a consequence of logistics points.
However the plans have roiled a market the place greater than 20,000 diesel-powered tankers have operated for many years.
NUPENG launched its strike Monday, alleging that Dangote’s new drivers had been being employed on the situation they don’t be a part of the union — allegations disputed by Dangote.
“What Dangote has proven over time is that he’s not ready to have employees that may have a say in his employment,” union president Williams Akporeha advised Nigerian broadcaster Come up Information on Tuesday.
A spokesman for the refinery, Anthony Chiejina, performed down issues of a gasoline scarcity on account of the strike to AFP.
NUPENG has seen assist pour in from native organisations, amongst them the Nigeria Labour Congress, in addition to teams from overseas together with international union IndustriALL, based mostly in Switzerland, and the Worldwide Attorneys Helping Staff (ILAW) community department in Washington.
Chiejina, the Dangote spokesman, denied the declare that its drivers weren’t being allowed to affix a union, calling it “low cost blackmail”.
“It’s not true… no person has completed that and no person has ever,” he stated.
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© Agence France-Presse
