By Victor Ahiuma-Young, reporting from Geneva, Switzerland

GENEVA—UNITED Labour Congress of Nigeria, ULC,  has pleaded with the International Labour Organisation, ILO, to prevail on International Oil Companies, IOCs and others to end the indiscriminate sack of Nigerian workers and replacing them with expatriates.

Speaking with Nigerian journalists at the ongoing 106th session of the International Labour Conference, ILC, in Geneva, Switzerland, President of ULC, Mr. Joe Ajaero, also implored the ILO to bring its influence to bear on the multinationals to  stop indecent jobs in Nigeria, especially casualization and outsourcing of workers.

Ajaero also insisted that labour movements in Nigeria must unit to end the assault on workers and their movement by multinationals and other employers, saying, “We need Nigerian solution to Nigeria’s problems. The ILO looks at global standards which you discover we are not implementing in Nigeria.  If you watch some years back even at the level of IndustriALL, we did some programmes to identify those companies involved in these precarious jobs.

Oil Pipe

“We believe that there is no synergy between unions, the labour centres and civil society in trying to make sure that employers in Nigeria comply with some of these international standards. But those who regulate labour matters in Nigeria seem to be sleeping. For example, those days,  we did have labour inspectors who go to factories to ensure that standards are complied with.

“Today, entrepreneurs just set up companies without labour inspectors going there to ensure that standards are complied with. So, the Ministry of Labour should intensify efforts by engaging labour inspectors so that all the standards are complied with before people take up jobs.

“Employers are taking advantage of the unemployment situation to advertise for jobs where millions of people will apply and they would then use the opportunity to exploit workers,  while they are not ready to comply with minimum standards, including wage and safety standards.

“Apart from that and the unemployment issues, there is the issue of the security of jobs and this should be more paramount in all our agitations because if you employed 100 new workers and you sack 5,000, it does not make sense.”

The level of job insecurity in Nigeria should be of serious concern especially the multinationals who are importing Indian, Chinese and other so-called expatriates to take over Nigerian jobs in the oil and gas, electricity, telecommunications among others.

“Besides, the multinationals also have penchant for precarious jobs and because most jobs are being casualised by them. If you say you are creating employment and such jobs are not decent, we should bring this matter before the ILO. We should let the ILO know that the jobs they are creating in Nigeria are jobs that people are using umbrella to sell credit cards and things like that.  We need to emphasis on quality jobs, and the security of jobs that are in existence.”