Construction companies or slave yards?

The plight of construction workers in the hands of their employers is a global issue that has raised concerns over the years. In the last couple of years, there have been reports of ‘enslavement’ and exploitation of Nigerian labourers who work on construction sites and what their living conditions and pay slips are like. The […]

The plight of construction workers in the hands of their employers is a global issue that has raised concerns over the years. In the last couple of years, there have been reports of ‘enslavement’ and exploitation of Nigerian labourers who work on construction sites and what their living conditions and pay slips are like.

The spotlight was Dubai and how South Asian workers, a majority of them Indians, “have gone on strike in Bahrain to press for better pay.” Aljazeera Television then went ahead to do a detailed story on the lives of these workers in Dubai. The complaints of these labourers are not so different from those of construction workers in Nigeria. Also, the revelations of Aljazeera’s investigations are almost applicable to the Nigerian situation.

Despite huge profits and subsequent capital flight by some construction firms in Nigeria, the working conditions and issues of general welfare of local workers who engage in rigorous, backbreaking and sun-scorching jobs in such outfits are still are pathetic. 

Even though an average local labourer in such engagements earns more than the average minimum wage of the various tiers of government in Nigeria, the condition, hours of work and output put into such jobs are incomparable to any regular workforce.

Weekly Trust investigations revealed that most of the workers work from Sunday to Sunday for a salary of N7,200, N25,000, N26,000 or N36,000 per month; depending on the area of operations and for how long one has been employed by the company. The least paid labourers are those who work in the Northern states of the country; many of them work for 11 hours daily in most of the companies without official break time and without overtime pay.

In some situations, especially when there is the ‘season of redundancy’ as it is referred to, the rainfalls determine the work and pay schedule. For some companies, if it begins to rain before work begins, it is automatically regarded as a no-work day even though work commences later in the day. If it begins to rain at about 11am or midday, workers are paid for four hours of work regardless of how many hours they have actually worked.

“The jobs that are being created by most of these construction firms are mostly ‘casual’ jobs, which can very well be described as cheap labour or indecent work. Just like other multinational investors, to a greater extent, these construction employers flout labour laws and most often get away with it,” says Engineer Chuka Goodness, who works with a construction firm in Abuja.

Our reporters gathered that the conditions of engagement of these workers are rather uncivilised, as most of the workers interviewed had no formal contract agreements. This is a tendency that places employees in awkward positions, as they find it difficult to bargain for better work conditions and salaries.

“Whoever tries to complain about the poor conditions of service is told he could easily be replaced. Hence, the employers tend to hire most of the workers as ‘casuals’ who can be hired and fired at will without reprisals,” Chuka said.

Weekly Trust gathered from workers of a Chinese construction firm in Abuja (CGC) who embarked on a peaceful protest last week along the Abuja-Kubwa expressway that the protest was not unconnected to their welfare, remuneration as well as other conditions of engagement. A senior labourer in the company who did not want to be identified told Weekly Trust that the aggrieved workers came out to express their feelings, so that the conditions of service could be looked into with a view to amending them.

“These Chinese people relocated from Northern Nigeria where we learnt construction labourers receive between N300-N350 daily. They thought the same scenario could be applied here in Abuja. There are people that have worked five years and are yet to be converted to permanent staff. All these and other related issues caused the protest,” he said.

In his reaction, a Chinese senior official of the company who was contacted for comments but refused to reveal his name said he does not have anything much to say. “It was a small misunderstanding that has been settled already.”

A staff of one of Nigeria’s major construction firms who also did not want to be named said, “We are employed as casual labourers and are to qualify as permanent staff after three years. What they have been doing is, after a project is completed, they sack us and then take on fresh hands when a new project comes. So it is almost impossible to work with them long enough to meet that requirement,” he said.

In fairness to some of the construction firms, our survey/investigations reveal that some of the famous firms pay up to N28,000 to N36,000 monthly. Another worker from Dantata and Sawoe confirmed this fact. “There are casual workers who receive as much as N26,000 to N28,000, and then the permanent staff (labourers) get N34,000 to N50,000 monthly.”

A common activity of the construction firms in Abuja is the mode of indecent transportation system used to convey their Nigerian labourers. Whether they are trained engineers or not, as long as you fall in that particular category, everyone gets on board the containers. A general view of the workers from the various companies explains that the issue of violation of workers’ rights by these companies cannot be viewed in isolation without looking at the part played by some Nigerian workers who are in management positions in those organisations and are often advisers to the companies’ management.

“When these companies bring a proposal that would better the lives of the workers, Nigerians in top management positions in such companies are the ones who surprisingly advise the management against such proposal.

“Most of the companies hire and fire the workers at will believing that they would employ other people waiting outside the gate to collect cheaper rate than training their staff for improved performance.

“To them, the workers have no right, and since there is not much work in Nigeria, workers could be hired at anytime and fired at will, because of the lack of job security in the country. Even the consultants that have the contractual duty as project managers and supervisors in ensuring that the rights of workers are clearly spelt out and strictly adhered to do not care. In most cases, the contractors as usual would claim ten times higher wages from their clients than they pay the workers,” Chuka said.

Even though some of the construction firms provide medical care, the medical provisions are not adequate considering the rigorous nature of their jobs. Except for just a few of the companies with good/standard medical facilities, a whole lot of the construction firms in Abuja do not even have adequate medical provisions for labourers. A brief visit to some of such clinics showed how some of the clinics are stock with menial tablets that can hardly meet the medical needs of the workers.

Our reporters gathered that whenever some of the unlucky labourers involved in using some of the insensitive outfits are faced with health conditions and the management discovers that their treatment would cost their company a lot of money and also last a relatively long while, they use a polite and systematic style of paying such workers off before laying them off.

A staff of Julius Berger who spoke to our reporters in lamentation said, “It is not so much the salary issue, but the hardly subtle and demeaning ways they make us feel indigent in our own country. Imagine after toiling in the sun for about ten to eleven hours, they then load us into containers back home.

“A lot of times, we stand or sit on rows of metal that they call chairs. Meanwhile, their oyinbo (white) students and less qualified people in their early teens and early twenties come here for IT or short courses and we drive them around in air-conditioned cars all day only to be chauffeured home like pigs,” he lamented.

Weekly Trust’s tour of a camp in one of Abuja’s giant construction firms in Kubwa close to the Federal Housing Estate, which houses its junior staff, revealed the direct opposite of maintenance of standard and quality that the company is well-known for, which is reflected in its senior staff quarters located in Life Camp.

Our reporters witnessed the unsanitary conditions of some facilities, unhygienic surrounding and the obviously paint-thirsty walls of the buildings. One could simply describe the facilities as “below the standard of living”.

Calls were made to contact the Julius Berger spokesperson, Mr Clement Illuoba, but they proved futile until a text message was sent to him stating that our reporters needed his comments regarding the issue at hand. Another call was then made sometime later which he answered, saying, “I have been ill; that is why you have not been able to reach me. I am not in the position to make any comments due to my condition. You can go ahead with your story.”

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has stated clearly that it is absolutely against the employment of workers as casual workers. “The issue of casual workers and the plight of construction workers is one that we have been fighting over the years. We have taken the matter before the government and the various parties concerned.

“We have been able to fight it to a reasonable extent, but there are some companies who still default. What we have done is to make sure that employees are a part of our union and can inform us of the goings-on regarding this issue,” said Comrade Liadi Babatunde, the General Secretary of the National Union of Civil Engineers, Construction, Furniture and Wood Workers (NUCECFWW), one of the unions under the NLC.

“From reports made to us, we have visited the companies and made sure that such employees are made permanent and given their benefits.

“Our most recent problems have been with Chinese companies operating in the far north of the country, but we are doing all we can to ensure that workers are not on casual basis and receive all their entitlements. Unfortunately, this is not a problem peculiar to the construction industry alone, but also applies to banks and the oil and gas sectors.

“You’ll find that some companies after three months of engaging staff whereby they should now be made permanent do not that. Close to the end of that period, they disengage these people and pay them off, giving one flimsy excuse or the other and sometimes ‘close down’ only to open a few weeks after in search of new hands that they treat the same way as the old ones.”

Regarding their salary scale, Comrade Babatunde informed Weekly Trust that “There is a standard negotiated agreement of a take-home pay of a minimum of N25,000. We find that many companies do not adhere to this agreement. Many of them, if they employ five hundred people, take one hundred of them as permanent staff and pay them the stipulated minimum. The other four hundred are treated as casual labourers and paid as such. But we are going round to ensure that these are corrected. Ordinarily, the government should have a clear-cut policy on such a thing, but at the moment, none seems to be in place or if there is, it doesn’t seem like it is being enforced,” he said.

The International Labour Organisation Standard according to her 1998 Declaration in Philadelphia on fundamental human rights at work states that its members must, “respect, promote and realise in good faith the principles concerning the fundamental rights at work.

This declaration on fundamental rights at work, although not binding in international law, underscores that all member-countries have an obligation to respect, promote and realise in good faith the fundamental principles involved, whether or not they have ratified the relevant ILO Conventions.

The African Charter, which has been enacted as an Act of the National Assembly, provides also in Article 15 that, “Every individual shall have the right to work under equitable and satisfactory conditions and shall receive equal pay for equal work.”

“Not later than three months after the beginning of a worker’s period of employment with an employer, the employer shall give to the worker a written statement specifying – the terms and conditions of employment, which include the nature of the employment and if the contract is for a fixed term and the date when the contract expires. This is what Section 7 (1) of the Labour Act, Cap 198, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 1990 provides for Nigerians.

These are indications that it falls on the State to ensure that all affected citizens enjoy these provisions regardless of who their employer is with no discriminations of any sort. 

On whose side is the Nigerian state?