IndustriALL – Shell Workers in Nigeria are Just Working to Die

IndustriALL reports that its mission to Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in September this year saw Shell workers living in shocking conditions and “found that Shell workers were falling ill and dying as a result of inadequate healthcare insurance.”

Contract workers outnumber permanent workers 2:1 at Shell and do the most dangerous jobs. Workers also said that if they asked for better wages or wanted to join a union, they would be threatened with dismissal.

“Our health insurance as it is, we are not doing well. If you are sick and go to the clinic, they don’t treat you well because the money that they pay to the HMOs is a meagre amount of money, so based on that, we don’t get it right at all. We are just working to die,” said one worker.

IndustriALL is campaigning to make Shell engage with unions on a global level. Unions want Shell to “limit precarious work at the company and ensure that the same high-level standards are applied at Shell operations, everywhere, including its suppliers.”

“While Shell says it wants to #makethefuture, it’s clear Shell contract workers in Nigeria have #gotnofuture, with no job security, poverty wages and zero prospects,” said IndustriALL in a press release.