Chantier Naval workers threaten strike over months of unpaid salaries!.

The threat from the workers to embark on the industrial action is contained in a letter addressed to the General Manager of the company. 

The letter, seen by The Guardian Post, circulated Monday. It is signed by representatives of the disgruntled workers.

Chantier Naval has known no peace since 2008, following the departure of the now incarnated Zacchaeus Forjindam, who left a blueprint at the helm of the institution as General Manager.

The workers who have threatened to down their tools are asking among others things, three months of unpaid salaries and several unsettled allowances. 

They have since given a seven-day ultimatum to management of the company to address their concerns or “have them to contend with”.

In the letter, addressed to top management of the company and dated Monday May 15, the disgruntled workers wrote: “Considering that trade unionists can effectively play a preponderant role in the development of the enterprise, considering the difficulties faced by the General Management in paying the salaries of its employees since November 2022, considering the non-payment of the 13th month of 2022 and considering that the salaries of the months of February, March and April 2023 have not been paid to date…”.

“…considering the absence of social dialogue between the General Management and the delegates of the CNIC, considering the correspondence of the staff delegates addressed to us and dated 03/05/2023, considering that all the demands listed below are of…vital nature, considering the Extraordinary General Assemblies held on 03/05/2023 on the Douala and Limbe sites, We, the Trade Unions working at CNIC and social partners, hereby come to demand the full payment within seven (07) calendar days”.

The workers immediately warned that: “Failure to this, we will be obliged to observe an indefinite work stoppage in all CNIC sites until our demands are fully met”.

Chantier Naval not new to strikes

Since 2008 when Zaccheus Forjindam was fired from the post of General Manager of the company, things have never been the same again.

To date, Chantier Naval has had several General Managers including Antoine Bikoro Alo’o, South Korea’s Moo Kwi Ho, Bernard Bayiha, Seoung-Rok Yang, Alfred Forgwei Mbeng and now Roland Maxime Aka’a Ndi’i.

But the series of protests at Chantier Naval are unending, making observers wonder, what has become of the institution after Zaccheus Mungwe Forjindam.

From a turnover of FCFA 400 billion in the days of Forjindam, Chantier Naval is struggling to get a FCFA 3 billion.

Unending protests

In January 2018, the company terminated the employment contracts of 270 employees for financial reasons. A recovery plan rolled out by the executive board of Chantier Naval to be implemented between 2015 and 2017, has still not helped matters. 

The said plan includes a social component which is aimed at reducing the number of employees for an adequacy with the normal level of activities of shipyards.

On March 16, 2021, workers of the company downed their tools demanding 13 months of unpaid salaries and emoluments.

In November 2018, former temporary workers of the Shipyard Engineering Company took their protest over years of unpaid arrears to the esplanade of the Prime Minister’s Office.

In fact, hardly has a year gone by without news of strike actions at Chantier Naval. It is either former workers or current workers staging protests demanding financial benefits.

In March 2012, 30 demonstrators, part of a group of 350 former workers of Chantier Naval, who were due to be paid separation bonuses after they were retrenched some years back, stormed the company in protest. 

Following a series of crisis meetings, the company agreed to pay the 350 former temporary workers some 525 million FCFA. The Guardian Post understands that over 1200 former temporary workers had demanded retrenchment benefits, but the authorities said only 350 qualified. 

The rest were disqualified during a pre-selection exercise on grounds that their documents were not authentic. Most of them were recruited during the reign of the sacked and imprisoned former General Manager, Zacheus Fornjindam, currently serving a life jail term for embezzling public funds.