Union Members of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) in Abuja, have lamented poor welfare and non remittance of their pension deductions.
Branch Chairman of the Wokers’ Union, Comrade Okechukwu Anya, who addressed journalists during the protest, threatened to pull out their members from terminals across the country, if the management of the commission fails to address issues affecting staff welfare in the next 24 hours.
Mr Anya condermed the non-remittance of pension deductions, adding that the action was an outright contravention of the Pension Reform Act (2014) which stipulates that monthly pension contributions should be remitted not later than 7 days.
The staff who staged a peaceful protest at the commission’s headquarters lamented poor working environment, insufficient working tools, as well as non-payment of outstanding claims for staff medicals.
They also accused the management of outstanding payments of 2023 Upfront allowances, unpaid staff on-call allowance, nonpayment of outsourced personnel, among other welfare issues.
The workers were carrying placards with inscriptions such as: “We cannot be working with our monies and not get refund”, “You have deducted our pensions and refused to remit to the PFA”, Pay support staff 7 months salaries”, and “Stop selling our future” amongst others.
According to them: “We have been engaging them since January. We have written series of letters, held physical meetings both officially and unofficially … For every time we throw up these issues we are told there is no fund but we know what is happening in the system.
The Union Chairman insisted that the workers would be pulled out from the terminals if nothing is done to address the issues raised.
“We will pull our staff out of the terminal with immediate effect. We have our staff waiting at the terminal for the next line of action. We are putting management on notice, if they don’t quickly comply with our demands and our welfare we will pull out our staff with immediate effect. We are giving management 24hours to respond to these issues or we pull out our staff.
Anya, stated that the protest is to register their displeasure and to draw attention to their plight after all other channels have failed.
“We have engaged our management for so long on topical issues that affects the staff and all our complaints have all fallen on deaf ears and that’s why we have resorted today to take to peaceful protest to register our grievances.”
Remi Johnson, Edited By Grace Namiji
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