NLC President, Comrade Abdulwahed Omar
The United States Solidarity Centre has released a new report detailing the Nigerian oil industry’s shift from permanent, direct employment towards outsourced and temporary labour – known in Nigeria as “casualisation.”
The Solidarity Centre is an international non-profit allied organisation of the AFL-CIO established to provide assistance to workers around the world. The centre works with trade unions, nongovernmental organisations, community organisations, and governments to advance workers’ rights and promote broad-based, sustainable economic and democratic development in 60 countries.
The report titled ‘Degradation of Work: Oil and Casualisation of Labour in the Niger Delta’ argues that the casualisation of labour is industry-wide, and is a clear attempt to reduce the cost of doing business while simultaneously breaking workers’ strength.
The report, which is the third in the Degradation of Work series, examines in part how worker rights standards have been degraded by economic globalisation.
The report observed that despite the profitability and dominance of the oil industry in Nigeria, it has failed to deliver broad-based economic growth and development. The centre explained that as Nigeria’s export earnings and the profits of multinational oil companies operating in the country reach into the tens of billions of dollars, the statistical duality of the haves and have-nots is alarming, adding that the increased oil revenue has accrued largely to Nigeria’s elite.
This development, the report stated has reduced governance to a loose system of corrupt payments, contracts, and other forms of oil rents, as well as a web of theft and black market sale of crude oil and oil products.
“Foreign oil companies operating in the Niger Delta have become so intertwined with the government that it is impossible to discuss the enclave economy without noting the massive presence of the Nigerian federal government as a partner to the oil majors. These links go beyond oil concessions.
“The Nigerian government is a majority shareholder in numerous projects run by the oil majors. It also operates a network of its own refineries, gas facilities, and other installations through the NNPC and its many subsidiaries. The NNPC is often called the “other major” because of its role in the oil business,” the report noted.
According to the report, the dominance of oil has been a mixed blessing for Nigerian oil workers as oil industry jobs have unlocked the promise of natural resource wealth, but not without struggle.