ESTUDIOS SOCIO CULTURALES

Contract status

There seemed to be tension between contract and permanent workers in the Nigerian oil and gas industry over issues like - pay, training, job security, promotion etc. Both temporary and contract workers were found to have job insecurity although majority were contract workers. In a comment by a permanent Engineer (permanent/local), he said,

“job insecurity is another thing we face in my company, redundancy takes place every 5-10 years which makes it hard for you to relax, you are as good as your last breath and most times, it is your performance that speaks for you...so many of my friends have lost their jobs even the hard working ones. Nobody knows who is next” Similarly, a contract Welder argued: “my work is dependent on the needs of my company so it does not matter how many years contract I have left on paper, once they don’t require my services, they sack me”. Certainly,

job insecurity was a central feature of contract employment. Yet another contract Engineer commented: “you can be disposed at any time so we basically live from trip to trip”. These accounts reveal that job insecurity is being battled by both contract and permanent worker but majorly by contract workers. The uncertainty and insecurity they feel about their jobs led to dissatisfaction and mirrors a source of stress to the workers.

In digging deep into labour exploitation, some contract workers worked longer hours than prearranged by Management just to protect their income. A contract/local worker said,

"...I'm contracted to work 12 hours but I do 18 hours, I do not have control over the way my work is done as there is no fixed rota, I work long hours at irregular patterns which makes it impossible to plan my life....sometimes, it feels like my company owns me and turn me to the direction they will without permission...I feel like I don't have control of my life so I do a lot of unpaid overtime sadly”. Another contract worker argued: “Sometimes, I work for 24 to 26 hours without sleep which can make me vulnerable to errors at work. My workload is just too much for one person to handle. We are not very much regarded as contract workers…we are like slaves in our own country…..we work round the clock”.

The above findings suggests that although contract workers put in the longest weekly working hours in the Nigerian oil industry, they experience unstable shift patterns and minimal control over their jobs which highlights feelings of discontentment. This suggests that oil companies in Nigeria use subcontracting to pass the problem of safety to agencies as

they make contract workers work excessive and dangerous long shifts. According to Thompson (2003) this scenario brings about feelings of disconnectedness for contract workers and damages workers’ perception of effort bargain and psychological contract. Prolonged hours done by contract workers, beyond the standard have implications both for the workers and the organization. A driller (contract) acknowledged the dangerous consequences of longer working hours by contract workers. He said,

“I often work 16 hours a day. It makes me tired; likened to being drunk and this is when mistakes happen. We are not supposed to work more than 12 hours but we do because we are contract workers and do not really have a say. Actually, we forcefully endanger our lives and the lives of other”. Similarly, a contract Engineer said, "you cannot predict mistakes and errors and when they happen, they cause injury and death in some cases...there are no little mistakes when it comes to working offshore but the irony is that we work long hours and susceptible to mistakes". Consequent on the above, the contract workers feel a sense of

injustice in the Nigerian oil industry; particularly, they feel they are being used to achieve huge goals for the organizations but the management are not reciprocating their efforts specifically through promotions, bonuses, training etc.

Pay

According to a contract Engineer,

“...I don't care what expatriates are being paid, I only wish to have a permanent contract and get better pay and condition of service....my concern now is the difference in pay and conditions between permanent and contract workers" Another contract Engineer said: “....my company uses me as a professional and pays me peanut....I worked for one of them in the past as a contract staff and even then, I used to earn 5 times more than what I'm earning now as a permanent staff in an indigenous company". These accounts show that multinational

companies pay their workers more than local companies so workers from the local oil companies feel dissatisfied with their pay and thus feel disconnected from the industry. The organizations set a dividing line amongst workers in terms of their pay regardless of their experience and expertise which causes feelings of dissatisfaction for contract workers and constitutes a source of stress to them.

Training

Not only are the wages of contract workers lower than the permanent workers’, they are seldom offered formal training. Only the respondents who were permanent workers agreed to the fact that they were trained regularly and to a very high extent, the workers are allowed to use their abilities and trainings. This is in agreement with findings from chapter 7, showing that majority of contract workers (89.1%) disagreed that they received adequate training to do their jobs, whereas only 11.4% of permanent workers disagreed. This segregation of workplace conditions in terms of human capital development constitutes a source of stress for contract workers who are treated less well. As an Engineer on permanent contract noted,

"my company trained me for a year when I was employed and have been training me regularly which is invaluable....this training has given me an edge and make me enjoy my role even though it is very challenging”. Also, another Engineer on permanent basis

commented: "My organization invests so much in training its workers, we go on training

regularly and we have a technical community and knowledge sharing sessions where the workers learn from each other. I can boast of about 10 courses (both local and foreign) which is very important for my job”. Contrastingly, an Engineer on contract basis

commented:, he said, "...since I work as a contract staff, there is really no career ladder for

me to grow in, there is not opportunity for promotion or extra pay, in fact, I do not have the privileges of permanent workers such as training, they only use us to get some work done and they do away with us when they are tired of us. No promotion! No Rewards! No Bonuses!”

These cases of inequality shown above makes contract workers feel inferior to permanent workers and thus disconnected from the workforce. The dissatisfaction exhibited by contract respondents establishes a source of stress to them. Also, many contract workers highlighted the absence of the provision of paid holiday as a key illustration of the inequalities between contract and permanent workers. As commented by a Contract worker,

“I needed about two weeks holiday when my wife had our first baby but because I was not entitled to this as a contract worker, I had to make informal arrangements with my colleagues where I initially worked for an extra two weeks for them while they stood in for me during my 2 weeks holiday”

This hints that offshore work in Nigeria is such that reflects imbalance between work life and home life. Organizations seem not to be flexible in providing with work life balance conditions; this can be seen as a stressor for workers. There is evidence in chapter two that this kind of imbalance even have adverse effects on health and psychological well-being, thus, stress. The effort to find get work-life balance, to a reasonable extent is in the hands of the workers, especially contract workers. This result neatly sums up ways in which contract workers indirectly beat managerial control and unfulfilled bargain by managers. There is a peculiarity to the status of contract workers in the Nigerian oil industry, in terms of how it might lead to stress through labour exploitation. This scenario reflects Thompson’s (2003) argument of disconnected capitalism where workers are required to put in their time and commitments while the mangers do not make credible commitments to workers, thus feeling of disconnections by workers.

Workers’ organization

Although contract workers complained they did not have right to join the union, both contract and permanent workers subscribe to the idea of having an offshore union for a better representation of their needs i.e. a need to have a strong voice as offshore workers. In his comments, a permanent Engineer said:

"our unions are just good at asking the office workers to go on strike...we that work offshore hardly join in the strike because it's ‘gonna’ impact on our economy if we do not produce oil...I think it will be best for the offshore workers in Nigeria to have a union....it is the person who wears the shoes that knows where it hurts and I think this union should be open to everyone regardless of race and contract”.

On the other hand, a female contract Engineer commented:

“although the unions have made some achievements in the past with regards to our terms and conditions, the contract workers still need the freedom to join unions without being stopped by the oil companies. Also, the unions are just after terms and conditions, they don’t really have first class experience of working offshore, they don’t understand how we feel isolated from our families and communities, they don’t face the risky environment where there is no place to run to for safety when militants arise to do what they do best….in short, we need a union for offshore workers because it’s one thing to be an oil worker and it’s

another thing to be an offshore worker. The unions do not take care of our families for us when we are at the rig so they should stop deceiving us that they are for us”.

Yet another respondent argued, “… the unions have been fighting majorly for increase in

remuneration for all oil workers but they don’t really understand what it means to work offshore, they don’t fight for policies that will better us as offshore workers so as far as I'm concerned, they have been chasing shadows....I have developed sleeping problems what has the union done about it and I know there are so many other people who have developed one ailment or the other...a separate union for offshore workers will not be a bad idea".

The above accounts made a clear distinction between oil workers who work onshore and the ones who work offshore. Due to the different environmental terrain and different challenges, the offshore oil workers desired for an offshore union. The findings suggest that the current unions do not represent a voice for offshore workers thus the feelings of dissatisfaction by workers. Also, the comment on sleeping problems is a clear case of stress itself and not stressor. This suggests a need to investigate if offshore workers in the Niger Delta experience stress (as in chapter 7).

Conclusion

There is evidence that labour exploitation persists in contemporary capitalist economies. This phenomenon is most observed in developing nations where legislations, awareness and enforcement of labour laws are least developed. There were differences in pay, rewards and conditions between various types of workers – contract/permanent, male/female, and local/expatriate workers.

The dominance of the use of contract workers in the Nigerian oil and gas industry is well established. The findings showed that casualization is intimately related to perceived job insecurity because all of the respondents on contract basis were worried about losing their jobs and to a very large extent worsened by the consequences of job loss especially financial commitments to family as Nigeria is a collectivist country. Again, the study found that terms and conditions of contract workers in terms of formal training, right to organize and job security were not comparable to that of permanent workers and it causes a feeling of worry to the contract workers. More so, workload of contract workers was often more than that of permanent workers which was a generator of stressor for contract workers. Notable from the

analysis above is that contract workers are dissatisfied with their work pattern and have a low morale for their jobs.

Furthermore, gender inequality is of topical concern to the Nigerian oil and gas industry. Low participation of women makes the few female workers feel alone and thus dissatisfied and distressed. Women lag far behind men in the industry in terms of employment into offshore units. The few women offshore feel disconnected from the workforce as each of them appears to be the only female in their individual crews; this alienation might be a source of stress to the female workers.

Finally, a sense of injustice was prevalent amongst local workers in the Nigerian oil and gas industry due to distinctions in pay, employment opportunities, training, and security protection. This diverse disparity between expatriate and local workers make local workers feel disconnected and dissatisfied in their various organizations; these underlying factors might be a source of stress to offshore workers in the Niger Delta. It does not just reflect difference in the capacities of the workers as deduced from the interviews but rather differences in the bargaining power of the local-expatriate labour markets. These differences in conditions of work across different types of workers are stressors; in the absence of moderators, these have led to stress outcomes in the form of dissatisfaction, disunity amongst workers and disconnections.