The impact of Western building regulations, codes and models

A variant of this concept of economically dependent work in Nigeria is casualization of work.

Casualization in the Nigerian labour market is a subject of great concern. Casual employees are filling positions that are permanent in nature in line with employee vulnerability in Nigeria with the high level of unemployment and accompanying poverty. The world economic meltdown has bred a dangerous work environment where many desperate job seekers in the labour market are willing to take any job for survival purposes rather than dignity.

97Ibid.

98Agburu, J I, Nza, N C and Iyortsuun, A S, ‗Effect of Outsourcing Strategies on the Performance of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises‘, Journal of Global Entrepreneurship (2017) pp 7-26.

40 2.3.2 Casualisation of Labour in Nigeria

The origin of casualisation in Nigeria will be considered in two major dimensions namely:

a) Casualisation of labour during the colonial era b) Casualisation of labour after independence

Colonial Era

There was a coalescence of ideas about the labour policies adopted by the colonial administration.⁹⁹ The pacification of northern Nigeria in 1906 created the first opportunities for the colonial government to formulate and implement its labour policies. The former situation where labour regime was uncoordinated based on ―voluntarism‖,¹⁰⁰ gave way for a more proactive and coordinated labour policy. The new labour dispensation coincided with the coming of Lugard as the colonial governor of Nigeria. Lugard in order to ensure effective utilization of the indigent labour force introduced forced labour, which then was meant to induce interest of the natives in wage labour which became necessary in order to facilitate the laying of rail tracks across various parts of Nigeria.

This followed the opening of Jos and Enugu tin and coal mines in 1912 and 1915 respectively which require a large indigent work force.

The outbreak of World War 1 in 1914 changed the prevailing colonial labour policy at the time. Faced with enormous cost in prosecuting the war, the use of forced labour became exigent.

This was predicated on the need to have a labour force that could be readily deployed at short notice and one which could be converted to a reserve army to serve the colonial army in the prosecution of the war. The end of the war and demobilisation of the native army that followed created unanticipated labour problems. First, there was need to resettle the demobilized colonial native military personnel and check the burgeoning labour that is becoming too expensive to maintain.

Faced with the labour dilemma, the colonial government abandoned forced labour and introduced a

99 D, Otobo, State and Industrial Relations in Nigeria, (Lagos: Malthouse Press, 1988) p. 35

100 Voluntarism means free rein to the natives to choose whether to work for the government or not.

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new labour regime based on piece-meal payment system, which entails placing majority of the workers on part-time contracts. Thus, some of the workers were engaged to perform sundry work and at the end of the day are paid stipends calculated either hourly or daily. The colonial government resorted to use of daily paid workers, particularly in the technical departments. Perhaps this explains why most of labour unrest at the time came from artisans and labourers in the construction, building and engineering departments. The most celebrated case was that of staff of public works department (PWD) who complained having their salaries unceremoniously slashed overnight by the colonial governor, Sir McCullum who argued that the existing wages was still too high.¹⁰¹

Post-Colonial Era

It has been strongly argued that casualisation became a feature of the Nigerian labour market in the late 1980‘s when the country adopted the structural adjustment programme in line with the neoliberal policies prescribed by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.¹⁰² The adoption of structural adjustment policies means the implementation of neo liberal policies such as, the privatisation of government companies, deregulation of many sectors of the economy and the removal of subsidies on agricultural, and in the case of Nigeria, petroleum products.¹⁰³ Deregulation allowed the Nigerian government to hands off its monopoly in many sectors of the economy such as banking, health care, water resources, and telecommunications.¹⁰⁴ The effect of the policy was the retrenchment of workers in the public sector which created large scale unemployment. However, the private sector which was to be strengthened by government policies to absorb these workers could not absorb all the retrenched workers from the public sector. Therefore, many of them were employed as casual workers with low remuneration, limited benefits and lack of rights to organise.

101A K, UdekuIndustrial Relations in Developing Countries, the Case of Nigeria. (London: Macmillan Press, 1984) cited in P.U, Okoye and Y.W, Aderibeghe ‗Comparative Assessment of Safety Climate of Casuals and Permanent Construction Workers in Southern Nigeria‘ International Journal of Health and Psychology Research, vol. 2, No. 1 (2014) p. 58.

102 C, Alozie,Recession: Temporary Employment, the New Toast for Employers (Lagos: NEXT,2001), p. 80.

103 E E, Anugwom ‗Globalisation and Labour in Nigeria: Evidence from the construction Industry‘ (2007) AfricanDevelopment, vol. XXXII No.2 p 115.

104Ibid. see also A Fair Globalisation Creating Opportunities for all (Report of the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization, An ILO Publication, April, 2004,, p. 21 available at htm accessed 20/09/2017.

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Although the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) was geared towards less government involvement in the economy and more private sector participation, the revitalisation of the private sector was aimed at attracting the much needed Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into the country.

While it attracted some FDI almost in all sectors of the nation‘s economy, it has led to the lowering of labour standards at the same time.

Despite the wide criticisms, and basically due to the absence of a legislative response, casualisation has continued to enjoy a steady growth. In the past, casual labour was mainly unskilled and required seasonal work or short-term periodical jobs predominantly in the construction industry and the agricultural sector. But today both the skilled and the unskilled labour are engaged as casual workers and even in the public sector.¹⁰⁵Casualisation has become the in-thing. The bulk of workers in telecommunications, oil and gas sectors and other sectors of the economy are casual employees.