This article aims at highlighting the rising wave of unorthodox practices in Cameroon’s private which have plunged most workers in a very pathetic situation with their constitutional right to work breached on a daily basis.[i] The article acknowledges the efforts made by the Cameroon government to protect workers through a sound legislative and policy framework but also demonstrates the inability of these mechanisms to curb the excesses of some employers and other actors involved in labour relations in Cameroon. Specifically, the article unveils the statutory pecuniary and non-pecuniary labour rights which the Cameroon labour code and international labour conventions reserve for workers. To demonstrate why the Cameroon government needs to improve on the legislative and policy framework for the protection of workers in the private sector, the article sorts out some of the lacunae and frailties of the Cameroon labour code which employers exploit in their favour and at the detriment of the employees. The article rounds off with some recommendations to the Cameroonian law makers as well as to employees.
[i] The right to work is prescribed in the preamble of Cameroon’s constitution instituted by law No 2008/001 of 14 April 2008 to amend and supplement some provisions of law No96/6 of 18 January 1996 to amend the constitution of June 1972,
