Senate Moves To Stop Casual Jobs, Blames Banks For Turning Female Marketers Into Prostitutes

The Senate Thursday considered a bill seeking to stop employers in the private and public sectors, from engaging employable Nigerian graduates as casual workers. The Prohibition of Casualization Bill 2020, is sponsored by Senator Ayo Akinyelure (PDP, Ondo Central).

Leading the debate on the bill, Akinyelure said, “casualization of Nigerian graduates in the Nigerian labor market has become a subject of great concern as more workers continue to groan under this immoral strategy of cutting cost by employers rendering them inferior to their counterpart in other countries of the world. 

 According to him, “Statistics from the Nigeria Labor Congress shows that many workers in the telecommunications, oil and gas sectors are engaged as casual laborers by employers of labors. “Other sectors with thousands of casual laborers include mining, steel, banking and insurance. 

 “In all these sectors, staff outsourcing and casualization have become the order of the day as such workers no longer have regularized employment terms and, therefore, Nigerian graduates are treated as second class citizens in their own country of origin while foreigners from underdeveloped Countries from Asian, Indian, Pakistan, Lebanon with less qualification to Nigerian graduates are placed as managers above Nigerian graduates in many Private and even Government establishments in Nigeria.”

 Akinyelure raised alarm that the scourge of casualization of employment in Nigeria is gaining grounds in an unprecedented proportion, intensity and scale which must be stopped through appropriate legislations. 

 While citing the banking industry as a hub for casualization, the lawmaker blamed banks for turning female marketers into harlots and sexual slaves in desperate attempts by them to keep their jobs and meet unrealistic deposit targets. 

 “Mr. President, in Banking and Insurance Industry for instance, many young graduates particularly female are employed as Marketers and given unrealistic Customer deposit ceiling targets running into millions. They are hired and fired at will when such unrealistic targets are not met. 

 “The female among them who are desperate in keeping their jobs turned to harlotry and sex slavery, moving from one office to the other looking for invisible customers who had staunch of fund to enable them meet their targets Mr. President, it is high time this evil and devilish act is stopped,” he fumed. 

 Senator Biodun Olujimi (PDP, Ekiti South), while re-echoing Akinyelure’s observation said, “Our girls have been turned into what we cannot imagine. Most of them have been asked to look for funds, and when they come to me , I always tell them, I do not even have the funds to eat, not to talk of keeping in the banks.” 

 The lawmaker, therefore, harped on the need to have a legal framework to ensure that casualization does not exist. “If you must take workers, take the number you can, on proper emoluments,” she said. 

On his part, Senator Ajibola Basiru (APC, Osun Central) while citing the position of the Supreme Court – which gives employers the power to hire and fire – called for caution in the way the bill is tweated, adding that the National Assembly “must make a distinction in making the prohibition between employment in the public sector and employment in the private sector.” 

 The Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege on his part, while throwing his weight behind the bill, lamented the treatment of casual workers by oil companies operating in the country. 

 The Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, in his remarks charged the Committee on Employment, Labor and Productivity to strike a balance in the bill to ensure that casual workers in the country are not made victims of layoffs. 

 He said: “The fact remains that we need employment for our people, especially our teeming youth on one hand. “On the other hand, we don’t want discrimination.

 “If we say no casualization at all, some of our people could be victims of layoffs, and, of course, we know what casualization brings. You don’t have any entitlements outside of what you’re given immediately”.

 The bill after scaling second reading, was referred by the Senate President to the Committee on Employment, Labor and Productivity, to report back within four weeks.