Brenda Yufeh
20 November 2008
The journey was long and tedious many stalemates along the road. But Cameroonian journalists and social communication professionals have been able to come to an understanding as far as the National Collective Convention for Journalists and Social Communication Professionals is concerned.
Negotiations for the collective convention which started in October 2005 met several obstacles until 12 November 2008 when the convention was signed.
Those who could be called the backbones in the birth of the first national convention to regulate employer-employee relations and to guarantee better working conditions for journalists and media workers in Cameroon say impediments encountered in seeing the convention come to light were financial, lack of understanding between the parties involved as well as negligence on the part of some employers.
Juliette Mbella, one of the representatives of employee says the first logjam witnessed during negotiations came from employee who realised that at the beginning employers were not committed in making sure that the convention sees the light of day.
According to her, during early meetings chaired by the Minister of Labour and Social Security, employers' representatives were never in attendance but for those from the Cameroon Radio and Television (CRTV) and the Cameroon News and Publishing Corporation (SOPECAM) whom she thinks their employees do not have financial and difficult working conditions as those found in the private media.
Another point of blockage witnessed was the clause on the salaries of journalists. Heads of private press organs were not comfortable with the salary scale proposed by the convention.
They said the economic situation of their enterprises is fragile and they needed the State to come to their aid constantly so that they could apply the convention.
Richard Touna, Publisher of "Repères" newspaper who is also one of the employers who placed his accord to the convention also added that negotiations took time because at the beginning some employers were afraid to pursue a convention whose clauses they could not implement.
According to Touna, this was because not all the parties involved understood the importance of the convention coupled with the fragility of the newspaper industry in Cameroon.
He also explained that syndicates involved in negotiating the convention were financially weak as they had no money to facilitate the signing of the convention.
Thanks to support from international organisations and the political will from the Ministers of Labour and Social Security and Communication, employers progressively understood the importance of the convention which was born on November 2008.
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