Oil workers take battle against casualisation to Tinubu

By Victor Ahiuma-Young

For years, casualisation has remained one of the most contentious labour issues in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, pitting workers’ unions against employers over the widespread use of temporary, contract and other forms of insecure employment in a sector where job stability and decent working conditions are critical to the welfare of workers.The practice has continued to attract concern from organised labour, particularly over the vulnerability of workers employed on casual or short-term contracts, who may perform duties similar to those of permanent employees without enjoying comparable job security, benefits and protections.Despite repeated engagements with employers and regulators, the unions have continued to push for an end to what they consider an exploitative employment arrangement.It is against this backdrop that the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, has taken its campaign against casualisation to the highest level, seeking the intervention of President Bola Tinubu to bring an end to the practice, particularly in the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry.NUPENG National Executive President, Otunba Salimon Akanni Oladiti, raised the issue when the union paid a courtesy visit to President Tinubu at the State House, Abuja, urging the President to use his good offices to stop the casualisation of workers in the sector.Oladiti said the union had engaged some of the affected oil companies without achieving the desired results, noting that NUPENG and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, PENGASSAN, had tolerated the practice partly because of the enormous disruption industrial action could cause to the national economy.But the union’s appeal to the President was not limited to workers’ employment status.NUPENG also used the occasion to commend the administration’s policies on road infrastructure, Compressed Natural Gas, CNG, gas-to-power initiatives and the revival of the country’s moribund refineries, while calling for similar attention to the nation’s neglected petroleum storage infrastructure.