CASUAL WORK ARRANGEMENTS (CWAs) AND ITS EFFECT ON RIGHT TO FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION IN NIGERIA

ABSTRACT Casual work is increasingly becoming the norm of a global economy as companies undergo restructuring, privatization, concentration on core activities and modifications in work organization and technology. These factors certainly affect traditional employment relations and the exercise of freedom of association and collective bargaining rights inherent in them. Flexible work patterns are now becoming dominant in developing countries and this makes it more difficult to organize workers for collective representation. A fall-out of globalization in Nigeria is the increase in CWAs. Workers in this form of work arrangements are subject to insecurity and little or no protection as labour legislation can seldom be effectively applied to them. Globalization is said to provoke the deterioration of working conditions in developing countries like Nigeria. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO) statistics union membership though still significant in large work places, has decreased in almost all parts of the world in the last decade. The relevance of collective representation is not always obvious when work places are small or in activities where there is little experience of collective organization and representation of interests. These factors are leading to a widening representational gap in the world of work. Based on these assertions, this study tends to examine casual work arrangements and freedom of association in Nigeria. A labour market segmentation theory provided the conceptual framework. Keywords: Casual workers, globalization, International Labour Organization (ILO), Freedom of association, Casual work arrangements (CWAs