‘How Imposed 4-Days Work Week is Increasingly
Growing Beneficial to English Speaking Cameroonians at the Mercy of Government in the Crisis Hit Regions of
the Country” Colbert Gwain Explains
Paul Achombong is Mayor of Bamenda
City Council. This follows the controversial 2020 twin elections where 89 years
old President Paul Biya's ruling Cameroon People's Democratic Movement, CPDM,
booted out leading opposition SDF party from virtually all its strongholds in
the restive two English Speaking Regions. Upon taking up his seat as Bamenda's
City Manager, Paul Achombong vowed to root out the resistance that decreed the
Monday ghost Towns leading to the imposition of a four days Work Week across
most of Anglophone Cameroon. To match word with action, he lined up a chain of
energetic measures aimed at enticing City dwellers to occupy City spaces on
Mondays. These included free distribution of basic necessities such as rice and
table oil. Realizing transportation was the greatest imepdement on Mondays, the
City Manager purchased a chain of commuter buses to circulate especially on
Mondays, and at no cost to those who could dare to do business on that day.
Months into this energetic Campaign,
Bamenda City dwellers realized the mayor's actions were not only poorly
conceived, badly designed and poorly rolled out, but that he lacked the means
and the time to fight off an idea it seemed it's time had come. They also
realized he had wasted the energy of action in the energy of the resolve.
Paul Achombong had not been alone in
the fight to restore institutional order. His predecessor, Vincent Ndumu Nji,
under whose tenure the 2016 protracted Anglophone crisis broke out, had
multiplied all strategies, firstly, to nib the imposition of the Monday Ghost
Towns in the bud and to, secondly, frustrating it from becoming the new normal
as we live it today. He had tried intimidating market Union Presidents, through
increasing rents and renegotiating market shed contracts, to simply making it a
point markets gates are flung open on Mondays, whether sellers and buyers were
there.
Perhaps, the veritable counterweight
to the imposed Monday Ghost Towns was late Buea Mayor, Ekema Patrick. He stuck
out his neck and swore Monday ghost Towns imposed by Anglophone activists and
separatist fighters demanding greater autonomy for the minority English
Speaking Regions, would only flourish over his dead body. Raw counter energy
and burnout finally stressed him to death, even as he had beaten the Ghost
Towns out of the Buea Central Business District. Cities like Limbe technically
settled for the essentials: keeping the Central Business District and
Administrative zone safe from the ghost.
The Governors of the North West and
South West Regions have been Central Government's visible faces in the fight to
restore the Status quo. Apart from threatening sanctions on Civil servants who
dared stay away from work on Mondays, they made it a duty to personally visit
government offices on Mondays, obliging roll calls. Anglophone Ministers in
Yaounde were also restless, with some making it a duty to organize the
distribution of Central Government's humanitarian assistance to IDPs in the
Regions only on Mondays. The counter-productiveness of the move have since made
Yaounde to have a rethink each time they are planning an activity for these two
Regions that requires the massive presence of the population. Tuesday, why not.
Apart from Limbe and parts of Buea in
the South West Region, as well as Nkambe in Donga Mantung, North West Region,
the totality of Southern Cameroonians religiously keep to the 4-Day Work Week,
at first, for fear of intimidation and threats to their lives and businesses,
and today, for its benefits to their wellbeing.
Genesis:
The Monday Ghost Towns phenomenon that
saw the reduction of the work week in the restive two English Speaking Regions
from five days to four days was imposed by leaders of the Cameroon Anglophone
Civil Society Consortium spearheaded by Felix Agbor Balla, Dr. Fontem Neba and
Willfred Tasang, to begin on Monday January 9, 2017, after failed attempts by
Government to provide satisfactory solutions to the Corporate demands raised by
Common Law Lawyers and All Anglophone Trade Unions in late 2016. This was
definitely a resolve by the Anglophone Civil Society then that 'when injustice
becomes a rule, resistance becomes a duty', as was articulated then by Hon
Joseph Wirba, erstwhile opposition SDF MP. In reaction, Government arrested
Barrister Agbor Balla, Dr. Fontem Neba and later, Mancho Bibixy, while Wilfred
Tassang escaped to Nigeria, only to be picked up months later, alongside the
famous Nerra 10.
Government's Nightmire, Workers
Favour:
Government of Cameroon has seen the
forceful imposition of Monday ghost Towns in the two English Speaking Regions
of Cameroon that reduces the work week from five days to four days, as a slap
on the face. It had developed one beautiful argument after another as to why
people living and working in the two English Speaking Regions should defeat
fear and take to their offices on Mondays. The more the arguments become
convincing, the more workers, including Civil servants, stay away from their
offices on Mondays.
Not that people have not tried
yielding to Government and respecting Monday as a work day. Only that some have
done so at the cost of their lives as workers and school children have been
killed to and fro work or school by separatist fighters, and shops opening on
Mondays reduced to ashes sometimes with their owners Kidnapped for ransom.
In the process of these last five
years of an imposed 32 hours work week instead of the 40 hours
Government-approved work week, workers living and working in the two English
Speaking Regions now speak of the advantages of a four day workweek over an
archaic and outdated 19th century 5-Day Work Week. They even argue that if
Yaounde were smart enough, it could allow the two Special Status Regions of the
North West and South West appropriate the 4-Day Work Week as part of the
Special Status arrangement.
Advantages of 4-Day Work Week:
Most of those I spoke to in
preparation for this write-up were categorical that although it was initially a
disturbing idea to sit at home on Mondays, they have already become used to it
in such a way that it would be difficult again to turn them around back to the
old 5-Day Work Week. They say the compulsory staying home on Mondays have not
only given them opportunity to have quality time with family, children and
friends, but also to save transport and lunch money they would have used if
they were to go to work on Mondays.
Others say staying home on Mondays
have not only deepened and enriched their relationships with neighbours through
various social interactions, but have also increased their ability and
engagements in various thrift and loan schemes that improve individual
wellbeing and family welfare.
More importantly, both workers and
company owners I talked to confess rather to increased productivity and
alertness of staff at the workplace during the 4-Day work week. One of them
compared the situation to that of a student who has to fend for his/herself and
study at the same time. When s/he squeezes out time to study, s/he absorbs
his/her lessons more than s/he who has all the time to school and study.
Another employer in Limbe confessed
that the 4-Day Work Week experienced since 2017 in his company have seen
burnout and stress levels among staff drastically reduced and that with
increased automation and the advent of the COVID19 pandemic, most of his staff
now work remotely. He argued that since the same results could be archieved in
fewer days today, there was no reason to insist on keeping a five day work
week.
Cameroon inadvertently becoming
first-ever African Country to experiment 4-Day Work Week.
The idea of a 4-Day Work Week is not
new to the world. Like the 4-Day Work Week, the existing 5-Day Work Week or 40
hours workweek with was never introduced or decreed by any Government. The
entire world originally practised a 6-Day Work Week until the 18th Century when
Ford Motors introduced the workabililty and benefits of a 5-Day Work Week, and
governments around the world simply aligned.
In the 90s, Cameroon was not only
still practising a 6-Day work week before reducing it to five during the
economic crisis, to enable Civil servants go to their farms on Saturdays and
supplement their poor take home, but practised a two-shift work day in the
French Speaking Regions, that was finally abolished to align with a more
productive Anglophone one-shift work system.
Today, with automation, digitalization
and calls for flexiwork, the world has been moving, and fast to reimagining a
4-Day Work Week. The governments of Iceland, New Zealand, Finland, Japan and
Spain, have been at the forefront of experimenting, and with huge successes the
workabililty of a 4-Day Work Week.
The British Government has officially
announced it would be experimenting a 4-Day Work Week beginning this June 2022,
while Spain is ready to pay employers that begin experimenting on a 4-Day Work
Week of 32 hours without tampering with the wages and number of leave days of
employees.
4-Day Work Week, an idea whose time
has come:
As stated earlier, a 4-Day workweek is
not a new idea but it has come under serious consideration since the COVID19
pandemic generated a broad reevaluation of how we work, including a great work-
-from-home-migration and hybrid-office implementation.
Emphasizing results instead of house
logged in, the 4-day workweek presupposes that results are archieved in fewer
hours so people have more time to pursue other interests, spend time with loved
ones, and manage their lives, while companies benefit through increased sales
and decreased worker burnout.
Andrew Barnes, author of the book: The
4 Day Week, argues that: 'The five-day week is a 19th century construct that is
not fit for purpose in the twenty-first century'.
Experiments with the four-day workweek
in the United States have been taking place since the 1990s. Although imposed
in the two English Speaking Regions of Cameroon since 2017 for the wrong
reasons and as a visible sign of resistance against the actions of central
Government, the fundamental goal of a four day workweek is to improve workers
quality of life. By working fewer hours overall, and having three full days
off, people have more time for personal priorities.
While a four day workweek might have
environmental benefits from reduced commuting and traffic congestion, companies
benefit from lower operating cost.
A poll conducted by Gallup in 2020
revealed that while individuals working four day weeks reported lower levels of
burnout and higher wellbeing compared to those working six or five day weeks,
the percentage of actively disengaged workers was lowest among those who worked
four day weeks.
Being an idea whose time has come, the
four day work week is gaining traction across the globe, including the United
States, and Cameroon must not afford to be left behind, even if the idea was
introduced by counter-elites and for wrong reasons, and as Wilfred Tasang said
at the time of declaring the Monday ghost towns, knowing whether it was Yaounde
in control or Bamenda. With California State Rep. Mark Takano, a Democrat
introducing a bill last year that would see the implementation of a four day
workweek in the United States, this is a key step in getting the world begin
reconsidering a four day work week.
While discussions and research
continue on whether such a day should be Monday, Wednesday or Friday, and
whether this could be a one-size-fit-all, given the nature of some companies
and factories, Wildbit, Buffer, the Japanese Government, the Scottish
Government and the Spanish Government, are already at the forefront on
implementing it.
Could Cameroon authorities market it
as the strongest marker of the Special Statusness of its two English Speaking
Regions?.Affaire A suivre...
*Colbert Gwain is International
Freelance reporter/writer, award winning Digital Rights advocate, Content
Creator @TheColbertFactor, legislative advocacy Campaigner for a comprehensive
Digital Rights Bill, Privacy and data protection laws for Cameroon, Facebook
Trainer of Trainers for Central African zone, promoter, Cameroon Association of
Content Creators, CACC, and Specialist on New Digital Civil Society in Africa
Playbook. You can talk back at dignitytelevision69@gmail.comPicture Highlights
and Memories of PWD Football Social Club Victory of the 2021/2022 Cameroon Cup
Finals.
