A new report on the activities of oil companies in the Niger Delta has revealed that the degradation of work in the oil-rich region jeopardizes the livelihoods and well-being of workers and their families.

The report by American Center for International Labour Solidarity, ACILS, revealed that this has resulted in fewer opportunities for Nigerians to improve working and living conditions, especially in local communities that have seen little benefit from the profitable sector.

In the report titled “Degradation of work: Oil and Casualization of Labor in Niger Delta”, ACILS, said “The majority of Nigeria’s workforce cannot count on steady jobs, and 70 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. One of the bright spots had been the petroleum sector. Now Nigeria’s oil workers, who fought hard for their rights and good jobs within the industry, are losing out to ‘casualization,’ a global trend in which formal jobs with good pay and benefits are replaced with temporary, short-term, outsourced or otherwise informal employment. The opportunities for regular, decent jobs in the oil and gas sector—jobs that once kept the hopes of host communities alive—are being depleted by casualization,” explains Bayo Olowoshile, General Secretary of the Petroleum and National Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN). These jobs are cheaper for employers but more precarious for workers. Casual workers make as little as 15–50 percent of the union wage, have no job security and receive few, if any, benefits, according to “Oil and the Casualization of Labor in the Niger Delta.”

The report found that temporary work arrangements often deny workers the freedom of association, erecting barriers to union membership and denying access to the protections won by worker organizations.

“Casualization as a global corporate device is being crudely implemented in developing countries, especially Nigeria, to obliterate unionization efforts and to minimize the rights and benefits gained over decades of struggles for and by the working people,” said Elijah Okougbo, general secretary of the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG). However, because the Nigerian oil economy is an “enclave economy,” a gulf between those on the inside of the literal walls and communities on the outside is widening—with workers caught in the middle.

Rather than address the entrenched poverty in the region, many employers are taking advantage of the situation to depress wages and weaken worker organizations as desperate community members, hungry for scarce work, will take jobs whether they meet labor standards or pay a living wage.

“Instead of focusing on why the very profitable oil industry has not delivered broad-based economic growth and development, some community members resent the oil workers and the gains they’ve won at the bargaining table,” said Dr. Jennifer Spiff, president of the Women’s Initiative for Transparency and Social Justice in Rivers state.

Yet, as Jason Campbell, Solidarity Center country program director in Nigeria, explains, “Casualization drags down wages for all, puts the safety and health of workers at risk and ultimately further

impoverishes working people.” Temporary staff find that they have few rights. They cannot raise health and safety issues for fear of being fired. They cannot ask for better pay or working conditions. In so cases, temporary workers have had the same jobs for years

“If this corporate practice to maximize profits on the backs of vulnerable people and at the expense of workers’ rights and health continues, no Nigerian will win. The violence against oil workers may get worse, environmental degradation will increase and the cycle of poverty in a region that is producing so much money for a few corporations will only become more ded

The work of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry was once a hope for raising working and living standards in country, the report concludes. Oil workers are working to counter casualization, organize temporary workers and fight for their rights