(Ecofin Agency) - In Ivory Coast, employees at Petroci on Tuesday commenced a 72-hour strike to protest against redundancies the company made due to the existing global crude oil price crisis.

Union leaders in the country have threatened to extend the protest to other companies, if workers' demands were not met.

According to the union leaders, fifty out of Petroci's 600 staffs were made jobless last month and additional 150 are estimated to follow. The change they believe, was impelled by a recommendation from an audit that the company reduce costs and staff.

“Our employer violated all the rules and refuses to agree to the workers' demands. We have in front of us an employer that doesn't respect anything,” Jeremie N'Guessan Wondje, a Petroci employee and secretary general of the SYNTEPCI union told Reuters.

Wondje added that SYNTEPCI is planning to increase the strike to include employees from 16 other companies, not excluding refining and logistics companies represented by the union, if a quick resolve of the dispute was not reached.

The state oil company, Petroci, is strongly involved in the downstream sector, supervising 36 % of the domestic gas distribution and approximately 30 filling stations.

Anita Fatunji