Tina Amanda
Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, says if the federal government fails to consider the oil and gas peculiarities before implementing the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System IPPIS, they will embark on a three-day warning industrial action starting from 24th June 2020
National Treasurer of the Union, Comrade Alex Agwanwor, who stated this to our correspondent Tina Amanda, emphasized that the structure used to negotiate the condition of services and salaries of workers in the Oil and Gas industry is quite different from the structure of IPPIS.
He noted that the peculiarities of the Oil and Gas sector must be recognized by the federal government in order to avoid errors in the wages and salaries of its workers.
“We have a disagreement on implementation because IPPIS is totally meant for the civil service, it is Programed on civil service structure in terms of salary, wages and commission. We as Oil and Gas workers we are like the private sector and we have our own structure in terms of agreement which we use in negotiating our members’ condition of services, not same as IPPIS salary commission.
“These are the areas we need to harmonize, and if the federal government goes ahead to implement it without considering our own peculiarities we would not accept it.
“We are trying to avoid a situation where the government will say our members did not key into IPPIS or a scenario where the salary and wages structure meant for the Oil and gas workers will not be appropriately paid.
“We believe that the stakeholders, federal government and all concerned will hear us, let government agree with our terms before implementing”
Comrade Agwanwor, however, said that the Union is still deliberating to review the situation, whether to continue on the action at the end of Tuesday, 23rd June 2020.
