Oil and gas workers demand Just Transition and corporate accountability
Emmanuel Adjei-Danso, IndustriALL director for mining and energy, opened the discussion by framing the structural pressures reshaping the sector: price instability, sanctions regimes, supply chain disruptions and the accelerating energy transition. He drew out the central question that would run through the day: how do workers and their unions ensure that the transition is fair and that no one is left behind?
Regional voices: workers at the frontlines
Prosper Akrai, representing the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) of Nigeria described the cascading consequences of Nigeria’s fuel subsidy removal in May 2023. The retail price of petrol has risen by approximately 643 per cent. Food costs have surged, consuming close to 80 per cent of an average worker’s monthly income. The naira has collapsed. Workers face simultaneous wage erosion, casualization of employment and a worsening security situation.
Prosper Akrai also flagged a direct attack on union rights. NUPENG and its sister union have faced an organized campaign by Dangote Refinery, which deployed media, social media influencers and politicians to undermine the unions’ public standing after they demanded workers be allowed the right to organize.
From the United States, Mike Smith, chair of the national oil bargaining programme for the United Steelworkers (USW), reported that BP has locked out approximately 900 workers at its Whiting, Indiana refinery since March 2026. BP refused to match a pattern agreement reached with Marathon and is demanding the conversion of 100 union jobs to contract positions, multiple wage scales,and a management rights clause that would remove workers’ ability to bargain over the impact of artificial intelligence. Replacement workers, paid two and a half times the union rate, are now running the 400,000 barrel-per-day facility at reduced capacity.
“We will continue to reach out if there are any engagements in any countries. We are going to chase British Petroleum across the world,”
Mike Smith said. He thanked IndustriALL and Unite for solidarity actions, including at BP’s shareholder meeting in London.
Naoki Kashima, executive chair of the JEC-Rengo Petroleum Subcommittee (Japan), described how Japan’s dependence on the Strait of Hormuz for more than 90 per cent of its crude oil imports makes it acutely exposed to regional conflict. Any disruption risks driving up energy, food and logistics costs, potentially wiping out the wage gains Japanese unions have achieved in recent years.
Hassan Juma, president of the Iraqi General Federation of Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Unions (IGFOGPU), delivered the most urgent testimony of the day. Oil production in Iraq has fallen by approximately 70 per cent as a result of regional conflict. Over 2,500 workers employed by multinational companies have been sent home without wages. The multinationals have left; the workers have not been paid.
“The first and last person who is impacted is the worker contracted by these multinational companies, because they still have not been paid their wages since the beginning of the war,” Juma said. “They do not have healthcare, they do not have health insurance.”
He described workers labouring in temperatures reaching 47 degrees Celsius in Basra, with field conditions climbing to 50 and 60 degrees in summer. Iraq’s economy, he said, depends on oil revenues for 85 per cent of its federal budget, leaving wages, pensions and public services entirely exposed to the disruption.
Tina Wilhelm of IGBCE (Germany) closed the regional panel by describing the structural contradiction facing Europe. Fossil energy remains essential for industrial stability, but long-term demand is uncertain. Companies are under-investing in both existing infrastructure and future technologies and workers lack clarity on what their futures will look like. She argued that the energy transition will only succeed if it is industrially viable and socially just, with workers recognized as active shapers of the process, not passive recipients of its consequences.
Holding capital accountable: Global Framework Agreements
Kemal Özkan IndustriALL assistant general secreatry outlined IndustriALL’s strategy of using Global Framework Agreements to hold multinationals to labour standards across their entire supply chains, regardless of what national law requires.
“Global Framework Agreements provide the leverage for our core business: union organizing,” Özkan said. “Through the clauses where the employer commits to respect freedom of association and collective bargaining, we also make an important move around social dialogue.”
He reported that IndustriALL’s agreement with ENI was renewed in January 2026, with new commitments on human rights due diligence and the integration of ILO Convention 190 on violence and harassment. Agreements with TotalEnergies and Engie are also active, the latter including an explicit commitment to Just Transition and sustainable employment. He called for renewed engagement with Petrobras following Brazilian elections in October 2026 and reaffirmed IndustriALL’s full solidarity with the USW workers locked out by BP.
Conclusions: solidarity, heat stress and a multi-year action plan
The conclusions noted that heat stress had emerged as a cross-cutting occupational health issue. IndustriALL and the ILO are in discussion on a programme to address heat stress across the sector, including dedicated training.
Frode Alfheim, co-chair of the IndustriALL Energy Sector and president of Styrke (Norway) closed with a call for global solidarity, reflecting on the testimony from Nigeria and Iraq.
“This is a global industrial issue where we have to work together to make sure they get the support they need,” he said.
He noted that Norway’s success in managing oil revenues for public benefit had its roots in expertise brought from Iraq in the late 1960s and called on the network to build on that history of cross-border knowledge and solidarity.
Participants agreed to develop a multi-year action plan linking affiliate unions across the global oil and gas supply chain.
