Limbe Shipyard workers reportedly went on strike on July 12, when the site at Mokundange assumed an unusual calm as only three could be seen at 9:00 am.
This followed a decision by the workers, since July 10, to down their tools in a strike action. The workers, mostly of the rank and file, made up of some 1,000 permanent staffers plus some 300 casual ones, are said to have been vexed by the long delay in paying their allowances which dragged on for two weeks or more.
Besides, one of the staffers of the Dutch contracting firm that is presently building the 400-metre long embankment at the shipyard site told The Post on Saturday, July 12, that the workers were also miffed by the fact that the Minister of Finance, recently asked that some 400 workers be laid off.
This is said to have been a measure aimed at shaking off some of the workers on the payroll of the Company for continuity and to conveniently be able to pay the rest. But this decision did not go down well with the workers.
A second option of slashing down salaries as a compromise is also said to have been rebuffed by the striking workers.
Following this stalemate, the workers, on July 10, are reported to have downed their tools and grounded every other activity on the site as they all rallied at the entrance to the shipyard and blocked the road, thus perturbing every oil tanker bound for SONARA or other vehicles that ply this road from Limbe to the Oil Refinery and beyond.
Fako SDO, Zang III, together with the Fako Divisional Delegate of Labour, are said to have descended to the site. On hearing the workers’ complaints, the SDO is said to have ordered the authorities to respect the payment of their workers’ overdue allowances.
Cameroon Shipyard and Industrial Engineering Company Ltd, Chantier Naval, authorities reportedly came in from Douala, following the SDO’s order, with cash to respond to the workers’ allowances demands.
But a crisis meeting held with the workers seemed not to have resolved all the worker’s worries as there was apparently no work on the site on Saturday.
The Post gathered that SDO, authorities of the Chantier Naval and the Divisional Delegate of Labour have thus found it difficult in striking a compromise with the workers on the two options from the company, either to lay-off 400 workers from their payroll or slash the salaries of all of them.
The workers are said to have held on to their positions of not being ready to accept any option as they compiled their grievances and forwarded to Yaounde as at July 11, following the Fako SDO’s return to the site.
