Douala: Trade unionists decry poor working conditions of local council employees.

The meeting, which took place at the Confederation's headquarters at Mboppi, Douala I Subdivision, saw the executive members, alongside other unionists, lamenting over recurrent wage cuts, non-payment of retirement allowance, poor working conditions, amongst others. 

"The Head of State has adopted the International Labour Organisation decent work convention. But today, this not our reality. Our salaries are not descent, we don't have social protection, our quotas are not paid to the Social Insurance Fund, there is no social dialogue,” they said.

The trade unionists added that: “Even the voice of workers’ representatives are not heard. We are crying because a council worker will go on retirement and die in poverty. We as poor parents are calling on the government to hear us". 

They said the living and working situations of employees of decentralised local collectivities have remained for many years an enigma to which the government has partly provided a solution by declassifying them from the State portfolio to the councils.

After several notifications to government, calling on the State to commit to improve the living and working conditions of the said group of workers the main unions affiliated to the CSTC and having many workers under their banner, decided to launch a strike notice in May 2023. 

The government is said to have responded on June 6, 2023, by a decision signed by the Minister, Director of the Civil Cabinet of the Presidency of the Republic. 

In decision No. 00001198/L/MINTSS/SG/SDCS/SSCS of June 6, 2023, Minister Samuel Mvondo Ayolo conveyed the High Instructions of the Head of State, H.E Paul Biya, to the Minister of Labour and Social Security, to find a favourable outcome to the demands made in the correspondence signed by the National and Departmental Unions of Workers of the Decentralised Territorial Collectivities of Cameroon affiliated to CSTC.

The Minister of Labour and Social Security, Gregoire Owona, in application of Convention 144 of the International Labour Organisation on tripartite consultations, on December 13, 2023, established a joint committee responsible for examining concerns relating to the working conditions of the employees. The said order proposed solutions to the issue.

However, the CCTU Secretary General, Bama Celestin, said the implementation of the proposals were delayed by the Ministry of Decentralisation and Local Development and the association, United Councils and Cities of Cameroon, UCCC, which were slow to designate their representatives to sit on this Commission.

"Meeting today in Douala, December 20, 2024 at the Labour Exchange of the Departmental Union of Workers of the Confederation of Workers of Cameroon, the representative group of unions is because we have seen a real glimmer of hope for the workers of the Decentralised Territorial Communities from our past meetings but there are still a lot we want to be respected," Bama added

The union leaders said they strongly wish that the principle of acquired rights be respected by their employers. They are expecting reimbursement in the coming days of the remainder of their salaries deducted due to the misinterpretation by certain Mayors of the legal status of council workers.

"We are still sticking to our logic of seeking solutions to free municipal staff from a status that has been uncertain for years, through the development, negotiation, adoption and signing of the very first national collective agreement for Decentralised Territorial Communities in the art of compromise," they said.  

This article was first published in The Guardian Post issue No:3238 of Monday September 23, 2024