The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, and the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, have suspended their strike after a meeting with the Federal Government on Wednesday.

The meeting which ended at 1am was attended by the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, the oil unions and International Oil Companies, IOCs.

The discussion bothered on issues of job security, causalisation of workers and improved welfare, and the minister appealed to the IOCs not to lay off workers as government is trying to make the environment more conducive for their businesses.

Other areas of discussion were the implementation of the 2015 Collective Bargaining Agreement between the federal government and the unions, the implementation of the Petroleum Industry Bill and the state under which the oil workers operate, especially the lack of power and bad roads.

In a communiqué issued at the end of the meeting by the Ministry of Labour and Employment, it was concluded that only one government agency had been affected by the non-implementation of 2015 Collective Bargaining Agreement.

It was agreed that the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission and the Ministry of Budget and National Planning would make corrections to be effective from March 1, 2015.

The communiqué also stated that “Most of the IOCs and Indigenous Oil Companies that have laid-off workers without passing through the due process of the law all agreed to comply and in such cases where the workers had gone on strike or locked out by employers, the meeting directed them to unlock such premises while the actions of employers have also been put on hold to make for a free and unfettered atmosphere during the negotiations.”