Yemisi Izuora
Total Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited, TEPNG, has raised alarm that the layers of its Health, Safety and Environment, HSE safeguards put in place to prevent accidents have been significantly reduced thereby increasing HSE risks in the environment, following industrial action by the company’s branch of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN.
Total also said that the disconnection of power supply to offices and servers by the Union poses grave risk to personnel and sensitive data as the Company’s normal operations were disrupted with potential loss of value to all stakeholders.
It was also learnt that the industrial feud further resulted to disruption of communication facilities in Crisis Management rooms thus exposing the company to grave risks in the event of emergency as normal means of communication with the sites were unavailable.
In a statement, Total said PENGASSAN has indicated that its ongoing, illegal industrial action is predicated upon the global implementation of the TOTAL Group projects in IST and Finance Divisions of the company.
“As earlier communicated to the Association, and hereby re-emphasised, management is disposed and willing to dialogue on the specific areas of concern as raised by the Association. During a meeting held with PENGASSAN on March 27, 2018, it was clearly stated by TEPNG that the implementation of these Group projects would not entail job loss to any member of the Association.
The statement further explained, “On Tuesday, April 03, 2018, Management received a letter from PENGASSAN nominating its representatives to the agreed joint committees on the various projects. The committees were duly constituted and were to commence work this week only for PENGASSAN to withdraw her nominations and resorting to strike actions across the company’s locations despite reassurances that no TOTAL staff would lose his/her job.
It is worrisome that PENGASSAN has not only directed the stoppage of work in all office locations of the company, it has also deliberately blocked all channels of communication with management and as such no progress can be made.
Management notes with dismay the escalation of the situation by PENGASSAN with the disconnection of servers and power supply thereby disrupting operations”.
More worrisome, according to the company is that PENGASSAN further resorted to physically assaulting other personnel of the company who are not members of the Association by forcefully ejecting them out of their offices in violation of the company’s anti-harassment policy.
“Management views the Association’s current actions as deliberate and aimed at frustrating and hurting the company. PENGASSAN has failed to put forward her views through normal channels of dialogue. It has also shown crass disdain for established grievance procedures”, It said.