15 September, 2010
Bayo is the General Secretary of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN).
How Prevalent is Contract and Agency Labour and Casualisation in Nigeria?
CAL is increasing and alarmingly taking over Nigeria’s Oil and Gas industries. It encompasses various dimensions of precarious work and the worst forms of employment. CAL gives room for unfair labour practices that are repugnant to decent work principles. About 60% of our workforce is now composed of contract and agency workers. Standard, permanent employment is declining.
Is the Issue of Casualisation and Temporary Work Practices a Bigger Problem than it was Before?
The issue is a bigger problem in the Nigeria Oil and Gas Sector now than it was before due to the fact that employers and the government’s standpoint is that CAL is now a reality that cannot be wished away. This leaves trade unions with no other option than to tackle the adverse effects of CAL, which are:
• Use of this work practice to replace direct and permanent employment;
• To adversely change employment forms and conditions, to avoid social responsibilities and obligations which employers circumvent through gaps and inadequacies in our extant laws;
• To weaken trade union membership, solidarity and relevance, and to prevent union organising and recognition of the collective bargaining principle;
• It widens the exploitation gaps particularly by user enterprises who prefer to minimise cost and increase profit, at the expense and detriment of labour;
• It increases workplace discrimination and inequitable terms and conditions of employment;
• It seriously challenges trade union ability to protect job security;
• There are conflicts in the definition of employment relationships and the obligations of user enterprises, particularly where laws and employment regulatory agencies do not clarify these issues;
• And an underlying factor, casualisation and temporary work is a growing phenomenon due to the unemployment situation. Employers are exploiting workers’ desperation for a means of subsistence for their own profit mongering.
What are Differences in Nigeria Regarding Working Conditions Between CAL Workers and Permanent Workers?
Number one, casual and temporary workers are subjected to conditions that are not in accord with the general work conditions in the Oil and Gas Sector. Where CAL workers are lucky and are allowed to organise and bargain collectively, the mandate for negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement is seriously curtailed by the contracts between the contractors and agencies on the one side and by the primary enterprise on the other side.
In addition, these workers are subject to limited or no provisions for basic welfare, pensions and social security, health, safety, security and environmental protection, and other stipulated core ILO conventions. And to cite just one small example, Global Framework Agreements that are signed with Global Union Federations, where functional, are not usually made available and applicable to contract and agency workers.
Any set of negotiations in Nigeria that involves a collective agreement for these workers is prone to grievances, disputes, threats, resistance, and action from labour unions, contractors and agencies, and user enterprises.
What are the Main Ways in which Trade Unions are Supporting Casual and Contract and Agency Labour Workers?
It has become a priority to use union resources and machineries to mobilise support and confront the overall denial that contract and agency workers’ rights have not right to organise and bargain collectively. We are doing this through increases levels of sensitisation through mobilisations, campaigns, solidarity actions, protests, rallies, pickets, strikes, media work, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, and litigation.
We now have the task of entrenching the more effective and protective organising and collective bargaining strategies for contract and agency workers, with financial and organisation support from our union’s Union Solidarity Reserve fund, from organisations like the ICEM, Friedrich-Ebert Foundation of Germany, and the US Solidarity Center.
We are constantly implementing union resolutions, directives, and decisions in the area of campaigns, lobbying, engagements, and advocacy for contract and agency workers’ issues.
Which Ways Do You Feel the ICEM’s Global Campaign on CAL can be Helpful and Most Effective in Confronting the Challenges of CAL in Nigeria’s Oil and Gas Sector?
The Global CAL Campaign of the ICEM must use donors’ resources and mechanisms to mobilise support and confront resistance to full rights of contract and agency workers to organise and bargain collectively. The ICEM must increase awareness of the CAL situation, by all possible means, and it must effectively implement the Campaign through communication, engagement and evaluation, and correcting deviations/gaps in the global campaign strategies.
PENGASSAN’s best hope is that the ICEM will carry out advocacy and lobbying for fair labour policies and laws which are favourable to contract and agency workers, as to campaign for best practices in dealing with employment and working conditions issues relating to this most serious issue.