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Stories by Bimbola Oyesola 08033246177
Over the past 18 months, two IndustriALL Global Union affiliates in Nigeria have succeeded in organising around 7,500 contract and casual workers in the country’s oil and gas supply chain with substantial support from a union project against precarious work.
The global body said the fight against precarious work by the National Union of Petroleum & Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the Petroleum & Natural Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN) has been an uphill battle with multinational companies in the sector opposing them at every turn.
The union project in Nigeria, supported by IndustriALL affiliates FNV (Netherlands), CSC-BIE (Belgium) and FCE-CFDT (France), is part of a wider precarious work project that also includes Cameroon and Senegal. It also included support for a NUPENG and PENGASSAN workshop in Lagos in July 2017, which aimed to reinforce organisers’ and shop stewards’ capacity to organize precarious workers.
Both NUPENG, which represents junior employees and PENGASSAN, which represents senior employees, have a long history of fighting against casualization and contract work in the oil and gas sector in Nigeria.
Major oil and gas multinational companies present in Nigeria, including Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Agip and others, began outsourcing of jobs in the 80s and 90s. Today, agency and outsourced workers represent the majority of the workers in the oil and gas industry.
Herculean task
IndustriALL maintained that organising precarious workers in the oil and gas supply chain in Nigeria was a Herculean task.
According to the global labour body, multinationals and contractors prevent workers from joining the unions, while community associations negotiate recruitment and promotions for their members at the oil companies through intermediaries.
“This indirectly weakens the unions. Companies in the sector are using an increasing number of contractors which fragment the workforce. Some contractor companies are no more than letterbox entities, enabling them to avoid their legal obligations. Worse still, organizers are subject to attacks, and even kidnapping”, IndustriALL said.
It noted futher that multinational companies have replaced direct employment with third party contracts, destroying job security and permanent employment benefits and contributing to the further impoverishment of workers.
It added, “Furthermore, these contracts were concluded for only three months, making it difficult for workers to join a trade union for fear of retaliation and non-renewal of their contract. In effect, multinationals operating in cahoots with third parties have tried to subvert Nigeria’s labour laws and limit the right of workers to join trade unions. Challenging this contract labour system is tough because of an ineffective judicial system in Nigeria, which delays the hearing of labour cases in the courts.”
IndustriALL also expressed how out-dated refinery has impacted negatively on the nation’s capacity to boost investment, sustain and create more jobs.
“More jobs are lost to other countries in the export of crude oil, while state owned refineries are operating at less than 30 per cent of their capacity”, it said.
It also noted how more jobs are lost in the petrochemical sector due to on-going social and political conflicts, criminal activities damaging oil pipelines, and social unrest on oil related matters.
Putting the brakes on outsourcing
It explained equally how the two unions came under one umbrella of NUPENGASSAN to curtail the menace of outsourcing in the sector.
The project which has enabled both unions to organize thousands of precarious workers in the downstream and upstream sectors of the industry. Through the efforts, both unions have managed to secure permanent jobs for 200 contract workers in 2016.
“The solidarity of workers in the supply chain also played a special role in allowing NUPENG to support organizing of contract workers. For example, NUPENG mobilised tank drivers who arranged blockades in companies resisting the union’s efforts to organise contract workers. Thanks to the action of the drivers, management of the companies finally agreed to recognise the unions”, the global report addded.
Part of the challenges, IndustriALL acknowledged was the company-based collective bargaining prevails in the oil and gas industry in Nigeria. “On that basis multinational companies in the sector do not recognise the right of contract workers to be protected by the collective bargaining agreements negotiated for direct employees.”
“For example, PENGASSAN and Shell Nigeria have an agreement that only covers workers in the company’s core business (4,500 permanent employees); yet there are over 50,000 contract workers at the firm. In order to get round this practice PENGASSAN and NUPENG established multi-employer collective bargaining with the multiple contractors in the different multinational companies”, it revealed.
It however said both unions have been pushing for the establishment of labour contractors’ forums in companies in the upstream sector.
“ These forums are an umbrella body in companies for contractors to negotiate with the union representing contract workers. In the downstream sectors, the unions are also conducting multi employer’s bargaining with marketers’ associations”, it stated.
High unemployment in Nigeria, the global body observed, makes it easy for companies in the oil and gas sector to exploit workers.
It stated that thousands of workers have been working for multinationals’ contractors for years with no employment contracts. “There are huge disparities in the working conditions between employees and precarious workers. Core staff have access to many benefits including free medical treatment, maternity pay, Christmas bonus, leave allowance, profit sharing, a performance bonus and rent allowance. Meanwhile, precarious workers can earn as little as 10 per cent of the wage of permanent employees for equal work. Most of these workers have no access to free medical treatment and pension scheme nor do they benefit from the same health and safety protections.
“Through the continued pressure of PENGASSAN and NUPENG, Guidelines on Labour Administration Issues
