Sacked 1,444 Exxon-Mobil Workers Demand Terminal Benefits

Exxon-Mobil

About 1,444  Exxon-Mobil’s workers who were relieved of their jobs  have called on the company to pay them their agreed terminal benefits.

Addressing journalists in Abuja at the weekend, the workers also urged the National Assembly to intervene in efforts to persuade the company to pay them  their terminal benefits.

They accused the oil company of violating their rights and inflicting injustice on them by denying them their N11.4 billion entitlements.

In a speech read on behalf of the workers by the Registrar of the International Institute for Humanitarian and Environmental Law, Mr Cyprian Edward-Ekpo, the workers  said the relative peace in the Niger Delta would be threatened if the company failed to pay them their entitlements.

They said that the action of the firm was a gross violation of human/labour rights of the people.

The workers said alleged that a peaceful protest by them to press home their demand  was thwarted by the management of the Exxon-Mobil  who sponsored the police to harass, arrest and torture them.

According to them, the action of the international firm undermines the federal government’s efforts that had led to the current relative peace in the Niger-Delta region.

They said: “It is highly despicable and condemnable that a service contract worker who has worked for Exxon-Mobil for over thirty years was offered N150,000 as end of service benefit.

“May we quickly add that some members of this group were previously involved in militancy in the Niger Delta region, but as a result of the amnesty programme and transformation agenda of the federal government, they laid down arms and engaged in meaningful occupation.

“The consequences of Exxon-Mobil action by refusing to pay them their rightful entitlement shall certainly lead some of them to return to the creeks with its attendant negative consequences on the economy of the country.

By Tobi Soniyi