There are no careers or promotions for Nigerian bank contract workers Bank News

Lagos, Nigeria – Basit believes that raising the corporate levels of commercial banks in Nigeria has been an exercise in frustration.

The 28-year-old, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, has been working as an ATM at Fidelity Bank in Nigeria since 2015.

Six years later, he is in the same branch, working at the same income level, earning 68,000 naira ($ 165) a month for the same meager salary.

It is not Basit’s lack of work ethic, but the organization in which he works. Technically he’s not a full-time employee of Fidelity. All the time he has worked there, he has been a contract worker hired by an employment agency that has never worked directly.

Being a contractor means that Basit has no upward career in the bank or leaves benefits such as insurance, pensions or severance packages. If Fidelity’s management is not happy with their services or wants to cut costs, they can let them go when they renew their contract every two years.

Meanwhile, the employment agency takes part of the monthly salary as a “commission”.

Fidelity Bank has not responded to Al Jazeera’s request for comment. But Basit’s story is not unique.

More than 42% of Nigeria’s bank employees were hired in the third quarter of last year, the National Statistics Office reported. The rest are full-time bank employees – about a third of whom are senior employees.

Although unionists and government officials have said they are fixing problems with contract bank staff, solutions have come slowly. And until that is done, there is little employment opportunity for the banking sector to largely examine young contract workers.

Earnings before employees

Basit often thinks about quitting his job as a bank teller. But there is little opportunity for him in Africa’s largest economy.

Nigeria’s official unemployment rate rose to 33.3 per cent in the last three months of last year – the highest recorded and one of the highest in the world.

More than half of the country’s population of about 70 million was unemployed at the end of last year or had no full-time job.

This employment deficit has turned the employers ’market, leaving workers with almost no power to negotiate better conditions (let alone demand).

In the case of Basit, this means punishing him for 10 hours a day, as well as exploring the few options available to those who have little time left.

” The challenge is that you barely have time to go elsewhere to look for work, ” he told Al Jazeera. “You leave 5:00 to 6:00 and come home around 6:00. How do I get back as tired as this and start looking for job opportunities when I know there are still few?”

The Nigerian labor market has been contracting for several decades, but it is particularly widespread in the banking and oil sectors.

Approximately half of Nigeria’s population of over 70 million was unemployed at the end of last year or had no full-time job. [File:Adetona Omokanye/Bloomberg]

For Nigerian trade unionists, the so-called “temporary” of these workers is created by financial institutions that make higher profits at the expense of labor rights.

“In general, outsourcing, in terms of labor, is an exploitative system,” said fellow Sheikh Muhammed, secretary general of the National Union of Bank Insurance and Employees of Financial Institutions (NUBIFIE).

Abolarian Aderemi, a retired bank manager, worked for the bank for more than 30 years. He says the situation of contract workers is the result of poor government oversight.

“They are exploiting Nigeria’s poor leadership,” he said. “The union has turned against him, but no one is listening.”

Muhammed says contract workers have serious difficulties in joining or forming unions to negotiate for better wages and conditions.

“[Banks] take temporary workers to ensure that they confuse the employee’s identity and status so that they do not exercise anyone’s right to be a member, ”he told Al Jazeera.

The government has set up a committee to look into a number of issues surrounding contract workers in the country’s banking sector. But the effort halted the coronavirus pandemic, Nigerian Minister of Labor and Employment Festus Keyamo told Al Jazeera.

“We want to discuss with the banks the whole issue of temporary employee cases and we are now in the process of reviewing all labor laws,” he said.

Muhammed said the review should help address labor abuses.

“Once the review is signed in a working document, there will be no subcontracting [in the banking and insurance sector] without consulting the union and without taking the knowledge of the workers as reflected in the Labor Act, ”he said.

The job deficit has turned the company’s market in Nigeria, leaving workers with almost no strength to negotiate better conditions, let alone demand [File: Adetona Omokanye/Bloomberg]

Young and exploited

Although Nigeria has rules governing the working conditions of full-time workers, the law does not specifically address “triangular employment” that covers workers hired through employment agencies.

” From a legal point of view, there is nothing illegal about being a contract worker; it’s the function of the contract, ”said Waleey Fatai Lagos labor lawyer.

“From a moral point of view, [it is an issue of] it’s better than half a loaf of bread, ”he told Al Jazeera.

Muhammed of NUBIFIE says the problem is not how current laws are written, but that employment agencies are to blame for that.

“The Labor Law that regulates the relationship did not exempt you because you are a secondary employment provider,” he said. “It’s part of the things we get in this memorandum of understanding that we just worked on.”

But not all contract workers will be aware of their rights. Many employment agencies are looking for entry-level candidates for about 20 years with the Ordinary National Diploma (OND), the lowest tertiary degree awarded by polytechnics after a two-year program.

Higher degrees can also work against a job seeker.

Thirty-eight-year-old Ukamaka Olisakwe worked at two banks as a contractor between 2008 and 2014 in eastern Nigeria.

He told Al Jazeera that the first bank he worked for told him to list OND in his application, but told him to drop the more famous National Higher Diploma (HND) – a four-year degree that matches a bachelor’s degree.

” I think they found a loophole in the academic system, ” Olisakwe told Al Jazeera.

His first bank said he was paid 25,000 Naira a meager basic salary a month [$61] plus the commission, and was assigned to his work, where he was given performance targets to open five or six new accounts every day, and to create monthly cash deposits, often in the millions.

“The goal put on the backs of the workers was evil, unbelievable, [and] remove it from your head and if you can’t find it [the performance targets], you will not receive your commission, ”he said.

Olisakw left that job and took on a contract with another bank, where he worked in the customer service office along with basic full-time employees.

” It’s the same job function I was doing with the main staff, only I couldn’t accept the opening of accounts, ” he said.

His chances of achieving equality with the rest of the season were slim.

To change a work contract to a full-time employee job, employees must undergo a conversion study. But few are invited to the test.

” Conversion rarely happens. Some people will pick them by hand, ”he said.

Olisakw left the sector eventually worried that he would manage to turn contract work into a full-time job because he would eventually fall victim to age discrimination.

“You know that polytechnics confuse young people every year and when they come to training they keep banks to replace older workers,” he said. “It’s cheaper.”