Women plantation workers and economic crisis in Cameroon

Managements of tea estates have often given preference to female labour over male labour, on the assumption that women were 'naturally' more suited to plucking tea. They also were thought to be cheaper and more docile than men. In this chapter the author focuses on women pluckers at the Tole Tea Estate, one of the estates in Cameroon owned by the Cameroon Development Corporation (CDC). The estate was constructed in 1954 and marked a turning point in the history of the CDC. It was the first estate in Cameroon to produce tea and the first estate to recruit predominantly female labour. The author first examines what categories of women tended to sell their labour power to the estate management and how this relates to customary patriarchal controls in the local communities. Then he highlights the intensification of managerial control and exploitation of women pluckers during the economic crisis that has affected the corporation since 1986-1987. Finally, he deals with the response of women pluckers to this severe crisis, showing that they have adopted various strategies to cope with the structural adjustment measures which have been planned and implemented by the management in close cooperation with the State-controlled trade union. What emerges from this study is that even during the economic crisis the management has failed to fully control the women pluckers in the labour process