Outsourcing and contract staffing: An Institutionalised Casualisation

• CDWR Calls for a Struggle Against Precarious Work Practices

Outsourcing and contract staffing are exploitative practices wherein employers shift their workforce onto the payrolls of third-party labour contractors and this practice has been growing like wildfire in Nigeria over the last fifteen years, affecting both the private and public sectors. Flourishing sectors such as banking, oil and gas, aviation, telecommunications, manufacturing, and even government agencies have not been spared. Given that casualisation is a weapon aimed at maximizing profits and undermining genuine union organization, inevitably its widespread adoption has not translated into any meaningful improvement in the living and working conditions of the vast majority of workers engaged under such an exploitative labour arrangement. Instead, they are often trapped in precarious working conditions with minimal rights or benefits.

By Abbey Trotsky

Employers in both public and private sectors, under the guise of cost-saving, access to specialized skills, increased efficiency, and risk management, adopt outsourcing and contract staffing to sidestep their core responsibilities. These include paying fair wages, providing job security, and adhering to standard labour laws. For instance, outsourced and contract workers are typically hired on short-term or rolling contracts, often without benefits such as pensions, health insurance, or paid leave etc. In many cases, the owners of outsourcing companies are the top management staff who get a huge cut from the wage of these workers. This brutal exploitation policy ensures that the outsourcing company gets as much as 50% of the wage as commission. Hence, many workers earn a fraction of what their core counterparts on regularized and permanent employment receive for performing the same duties.

In clear violation of labour laws, these workers are frequently subjected to long hours under harsh conditions and are denied the right to unionize or collectively bargain. They lack job security and live under the constant threat of termination without notice or recourse. The daily humiliation of being treated as second-class workers also takes a toll on their mental health and family life. Given this background, it is evident that outsourcing and contract staffing amount to institutionalised casualisation. These practices, backed by certain provisions of the Labour Act, serve the ultimate goal of subjecting workers to precarious and near-servile conditions, all in the relentless pursuit of profit by capitalist business owners. Thus, they are modern tools of capitalist exploitation, flagrantly violating workers’ rights and the principle of equal pay for equal work.

In light of this, we of the Campaign for Democratic and Workers’ Rights (CDWR) openly call on the leadership of the trade union centres—represented by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), as well as their affiliated unions, to rise from their slumber and launch a vigorous campaign for the repeal of the anti-labour laws that legitimize outsourcing and contract staffing in the workplace. This campaign must be intrinsically linked to broader agitations against all forms of indecent labour practices. Regrettably, many labour leaders, particularly in the private sector, cannot be fully relied upon to initiate such a campaign without being pressured through independent agitation by the rank-and-file outsourced and contract workers. This is largely because some labour leaders are either direct owners of outsourcing companies that exploit workers with poor pay or receive hefty commissions from outsourcing firms and company owners.

Given this reality, only the united and determined struggle of casual, outsourced, contract and regularised workers across sectors, including banking, oil and gas, education, health, manufacturing, and government parastatals can compel labour leaders to take up or support the campaign against outsourcing, contract staffing, and other indecent work arrangements. Moreover, the absence of independent initiative and pressure from outsourced and contract workers explains why the Ajero-led NLC leadership has faced no serious pressure to kick start the struggle against casualisation it promised two years ago. We of the CDWR urge the NLC and TUC to set up such an anti-casualisation committee, considering it a crucial step towards launching a comprehensive campaign against casualisation in all its forms.

However, we maintain that this committee should be replicated across all states of the federation and must not be populated by bureaucrats who are already compromised and unwilling to lead a genuine struggle. Rather, it must be democratically constituted by committed activists both within and outside the trade union movement, and its activities must remain under the control of the membership it seeks to represent. Also importantly, the struggle against casualization and outsourcing should be linked to the broader fight for a living wage, better working conditions and a unionization drive linked to demanding the right of all workers to belong to a union of their choice and take industrial action when this is needed.