Aggrieved casual staff at Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) on Thursday grounded operational activities of Nigeria’s largest oil export terminal in Delta state over disparities in their remuneration .
The workers who are allegedly termed casual staff of the company shutdown the company’s mode of transportation activities over disparities in their wages and terms and conditions of service recently introduced by the Anglo Dutch oil giant.
According to them, the disparity in wages favoured mostly non-indigenous staff and those connected to the company’s managers to the detriment of host communities members.
It was also gathered that the local management had called in the military which arrived in a number of vans in order to prevent the workers from any forms of damage on facilities.
According to one of the leaders of the aggrieved worker, “The thing is, they brought a new package for workers’ salaries. The package is called brown field, and was supposed to cover everybody.
“But they handpicked a few indigenes and mostly non-indigenes, they increased their salaries from N100,000 – N316,000 and left most of the people behind.
“We have written many times to Shell to stop the disparity in payment method and to enhance workers welfare because as it is now, we are being treated like second class people in this facility.”
