West African trade union: case study of the cameroons development corporation worker's union and its relations with the employers

Few studies have been made hitherto of trade unions in the African colonies, One or two valuable, though rather brief general studies of trade wnionism are available and a good deal of bronder historical description is contained in reports of the various colonial Labout Departments; but relatively little is known about the internal workings of individual trade unions, or about the conduct of industrial relations between employers and trade unions, in those places where strong unions have become established. The present short study is intended to make some contribution towards filling this gap. It must be rather an unsatisfactory contribution. The data were collected in rather a haphazard way, as the C.D.C. Workers' Union was not in fact the main object of attention during the field-work on which it is based. I am aware of a considerable number of gaps which should have been filled in.

The study had its origins in a series of sociological and economic investigations in the Southern Cameroons which were in progress from 1953 to 1955, under the direction of Professor J. H. Richardson. A team from the West African Institute of Social and Economic Research, of which I was a member, was engaged on a survey in the territory of some of the problems connected with plantation labour. The main report on these investigations was circulated to the authorities concerned in 1956, and some of the material from it is being published elsewhere.