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Socialist Democracy September - October 2003

 

SHELL WORKERS STRIKE

By O.S.B. Sankara

A section of the Nigerian workers of the Anglo-Dutch multinational oil corporation, Shell Petroleum Development Company, under the aegis of the Petroleum and National Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN), on Wednesday 27 August embarked on a two weeks industrial action to protest against what they termed the "globalisation mission" of the company in Nigeria.

Simply put, the workers were protesting the planned retrenchment of workers and the discriminations against Nigerian workers as part of the company's plan to downsize its workforce as a result of its globalisation scheme. Other complaints of the Shell branch of the PENGASSAN include the introduction of Shell Services International (SSIN) and the Integrated Business System Application (IBS SAP) which the union accused Shell of locating at The Hague in Netherlands all aimed at streamlining Shell's operations in Africa and boost its profit.

The strike actions which affected the company's operations in Lagos, Warri and Port Harcourt threatened the oil production activities of Shell which is responsible for about a half of the country's oil output.

Though the strike was called off on September 11, following the intervention of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Managing Director, Mr. Gaius Obaseki, it was nonetheless an important indication of a growing awareness among Nigerian oil workers of the rapacious exploitation by multinational corporations, in this case the oil companies, under the nomenclature of globalisation. It is against this profit greed that millions of protesters have come out in anti-globalisation protests all over Europe and America.

To defeat the globalisation policies of Shell however, the PENGASSAN must link up with other workers� unions in the petroleum and other sectors of the economy who are daily victims of the profit greediness of the various multinational corporations dominating the economy of Nigeria. It must work with unions of Shell workers in other countries to build an international workers� resistance against this Shell anti-working class policy.

Above all, there is a need to understanding that the whole process of capitalist globalisation is part of a comprehensive neo-liberal capitalist attacks on the living and working conditions of the working class across the world, resulting in job losses, falling real wages, destruction of the environment, and a general worsening conditions of life for the working people. This is to enable the multinational corporations to boost their profit which is being undermined by the global capitalist economic recession. Hence the necessity for the trade unions and the labour movement in general to put forward an alternative socio-economic agenda based on an end to capitalism and the domination and rule of the multinational corporations. Instead, the labour movement must fight for the common ownership of the society�s collective wealth and their democratic management by the working people in order to guarantee job security and provide the basic needs of the working masses.

 

 

Socialist Democracy September - October 2003