Lagos — Casualization exists where an individual involved is employed but lacks the rights and benefits which a normal employee would have.

A casual could be laid off anytime, anyday and be re-employed anytime the employer wishes without recourse to the statutory employment regulations.

Monitoring of major manufacturing companies in Ikeja, the Lagos State capital and Apapa area of Lagos revealed that there are many casual workers who are working like slaves in Lagos than normal employees.

Our investigations into working conditions of these casual workers revealed that quite some of the industries based in Ikeja and Apapa engage in casualization of less privileged Nigerians despite the intervention of the Nigeria Labor Congress (NLC) against the act a couple of years ago.

Findings about working conditions of the affected Nigerians in some of the manufacturing companies in Ikeja showed that the employers of these people are largely the shrewd Lebanese, Chinese and in some cases, the European controlled companies that have no regard for the laws of this country.

Casual workers who spoke with Oodua Trust confirmed that there is no rumor in the information that they were being treated like outcasts and made to work for as long as 12 hours in some cases on a daily basis without meaningful benefits.

They added that the worst aspects of their work was that they were being made to work without protective work gear and safety gadgets, stating that this often exposes them to a lot of hazards. Some said they have been working under the condition of casual workers for years ranging between six and nine years.

Adeyemi Oyewunmi (not real names) explained that the nature of his work at a packaging company in Ikeja does not recognised public holidays, neither does it recognise the compulsory environmental sanitation exercise." If one fails to report for work during the last Saturday environmental exercise period, it means you're gone," he noted.

Another casual worker who works in a soft-drinks company near the old toll-gate along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, Samson Ifeanyi, described his working place as a 'slave camp.'

The young Nigerian, who hails from Imo State in search of greener pastures in Lagos, argued that the fault is not from the casual employers not to regard employment regulations but Nigerian leaders whom he accused of bustardising the nation's economy.

"It is quite disheartening to say we are working in Lagos perceived to be the 'Centre of Excellence' but we are always ill-rewarded.

All we get is peanuts as take home pay despite what we put into ensuring the smooth-running of their companies.

We are being treated like slaves whereas the employers are making sizeable amount of profit.

We toil and burn our blood as casuals every day," he said.

Ifeanyi's gloomy and unsavory report of treatment of casual workers by their shrewd employers summed up the ordeal of an average casual worker in most of the manufacturing companies in Lagos today.

Many among these casual workers were found to have been involved in various accidents while they were left to suffer untold hardships as a result of inadequate compensation. In so many cases of accidents, the compensation is non-existent.

Shamseen Alabi is another casual worker in a leading beverage producing company in Ikeja. He was unhappy with the work he engaged in at the industry because he said despite being a tedious work, it does not guarantee him a decent meal for a whole month, let alone the conventional three square meals on a daily basis.

"If other necessities such as house rent, clothing, transportation and upkeep of one's family were considered, being a casual worker is like working and suffering," he declared.

Alabi stated further that casual workers are welcome only when their companies are producing optimally and are making profits. "If the trend is suddenly reversed, a casual worker will get the boot without any benefit or compensation even if the casual has been working in the company for a decade. It is a sorry situation for all casual workers particularly those of us in Lagos because of the cost of living," he said.

The working condition and all the challenges attached to casualization have reached a worrisome level where captains in labour management have to ensure its eradication to guarantee a better life for people who toil and toil as casuals every day.

The idea of casualization, to a large extent, has been frowned at by the International Labor Organization (ILO), that has in the past, promulgated Laws and Acts aimed at making this type of employment dead and buried.