Chad-Cameroon Pipeline Workers Strike

Panafrican News Agency (Dakar), 3 April 2001

Yaounde, Cameroon—Some 140 employees laying pipes to convey Chadian oil from Dowa to Kribi in Cameroon have last went on strike in the locality of Nkongmeyos in Cameroon's Centre Province.

Local press reports said the strikers wanted a wage hike from 159 francs CFA an hour to 250 FCFA, and a 150 per cent increase in daily food ration from 1,000 FCFA to 2,500 FCFA.

They also wanted job guarantees and a halt to what they said were arbitrary and unfair dismissals.

Press accounts said the local district administrator mediated a compromise in which the strikers agreed to resume work after they were promised a 27% salary increase, alongside guarantees that they would keep their jobs for the entire eight-month duration of work on the Nkongmeyos.