Former Snec workers threaten to protest

They feel they have been abused by the Ministry of Labour and Social Security and the Cameroon Water Utilities Company regarding the regularization of their seniority and social rights.

"I'm retiring around next April. Can we make use of the laws surrounding my seniority my rights? I started work in 1986 but saw in my current file that I started work in 2001 when I took over for the second time. You see the game that is about to be played? This is why we complain," says Marcel Bikoe Mendo, staff delegate at the Cde, in the newspaper Le Messager edition of Monday, October 26, 2015.

Marcel Bikoe is one of 35 former employees of the National Water Company of Cameroon claiming for over two years, regularization of their seniority and social rights. According to Messager, November 28, 2013, these former employees addressed a petition to the Head of State asking for: "Regularization of their seniority and career history."

The signatories indicated in their correspondence that "dismissed for economic reasons in June 1996, we returned to our jobs in 2007 with great difficulty after reviewing six times the employment contract term. However, our employers remain deaf despite our multiple requests in granting our rights mentioned above."

"On the recommendation of the Head of State, the Director of the Civil Cabinet sends the case to the Ministry of Labour in order to enlighten him of the outcome of the case of the Camwater employees," the newspaper specifies.

A meeting was held among the three employee representatives of Camwater and the Ministry of Labour on 16 January 2014. According to former employees, during the meeting, "it was understood that the regularization of their seniority and their social rights would be restored." Unfortunately, over time, "the process was bogged down in developed murkiness and the former workers of Snec do not know where to turn to," wrote Le Messager.

"In April 2015, we were given a period of one month to regularize our age and our benefits. But until today, we hear nothing from this. Even our colleagues who represent us at meetings tell us nothing more. The Head of State sends you a case and you throw it in the trash. We understand nothing," indignant Marcel Bikoe Mendo.

Now the former workers say they are determined to go beyond a petition. "We are determined, within two weeks (November 6, 2015) to go to the Unity Palace to meet the Head of State," says Mr. Bikoe.