HALF of Cambodia’s garment workers, roughly 600,000, began a nationwide four-day ‘stay at home’ strike yesterday, called by eight trade unions demanding a higher minimum wage and the release of 21 imprisoned workers.
Garment workers have already held a general strike seeking an increase in minimum wage from US$80 per month to US$160.
In late December and early January, dozens of factories were forced to shut down after thousands downed tools. The employers association, the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC), called a lockout and urged the government to crack down on the workers.
The last strike came to an abrupt end on January 3rd when the government sent military police to attack a demonstration at one of the struck factories in Phnom Penh. They opened fire on the demonstration with AK-47 rifles and killed five workers and seriously injured more than 40 more.
The government has since banned all demonstrations and used military force to clear the streets. At least 39 workers have been detained and are held in unknown locations.
Twenty-three unionists and garment workers, including the 21 still in prison, were charged with inciting violence and property damage in relation to the protests and are scheduled to go on trial next week.
Hoping to avoid both a repeat of the violence and to take advantage of the Khmer New Year holiday, the unions this time around are asking workers to simply stay at home.
‘We expect more than 50 per cent of the workers not to come to work until April 22 to demand that the government and Ministry of Labour release the 21 prisoners and give them a $160 (monthly minimum) wage,’ said Far Saly, president of the National Trade Union Coalition.
‘We have informed our workers, handed out 100,000 leaflets and spread the information through social media and word-of-mouth. We will wait and see how many factories will be open or closed,’ he said.
Liv Tharin, who heads the Independent Democratic Youth Trade Union, was also hopeful that about half the country’s garment workers would be staying home yesterday.
‘If the government does not want to lose any revenue, it should not turn a blind eye and it should release the imprisoned workers and increase their salaries,’ he said.
The threat of more mass action has horrified Cambodian and foreign garment bosses who have relied on the state to impose slave labour conditions. The garment sector makes up the bulk of the country’s exports and generated more than $5 billion in revenue last year.
According to the GMAC, the strikes hit the industry with $42.2 million in lost production. The GMAC has been arguing that the unions’ new actions do not actually amount to a strike because the Labour Law says a strike can happen only when workers withhold their labour while at the factory.
To undermine the strike, some GMAC members have offered their workers extra days off after the three-day Kmer New Year celebrations ended on Wednesday. The association has threatened that anyone who stays away after the national holiday without permission will simply be taking an unexcused leave of absence and could face pay cuts, lost monthly bonuses or even the sack.
One factory, Bright Sky, was giving all its workers off until Monday, but said they had to make it up by working the next two Sundays, said employee Roeun, who gave only her first name for fear of retaliation from her bosses.
‘They said they won’t cut our salaries, but we have to work extra days to pay them back,’ she said.
Sun Konthea said the Sin Chew factory was giving her no such option. She said the bosses were calling everyone back from the New Year holiday to start work on Friday.
Meanwhile, on Thursday afternoon police in Svay Rieng province arrested Kem Chamroeun, a Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW) member who was delivering about 1,100 strike flyers to union members at Full Fortune Knitting.
CUMW president Pav Sina said the 25-year-old called the union to say that police were following him.
‘Kem Chamroeun brought the leaflets about the stay-at-home strike to our units at Full Fortune so they could distribute them to workers tomorrow,’ Sina said.
‘But the authorities stopped and arrested him, taking his phone and leaflets.’ Sina said he reported the arrest to the UN and to rights groups Licadho and Adhoc.
Deputy provincial police chiefs Nup Kimheng, Hem Saban and Nim Thourn all said they were unaware of the arrest. Prior to this weekend’s strike and next week’s trials of 23 union and garment protesters, workers have been asked to back Ath Thorn, the president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union (CCAWDU).
On Tuesday he said he plans to call on his members to help fund a $25,000 bail order that would keep him from being held in pre-trial detention if he is formally charged with incitement.
The previous week he was questioned at the municipal court over allegations that he incited a violent strike, threw rocks and injured a worker at Phnom Penh’s SL Garment Factory last year.
Ouch Noeun, secretary-general of CCAWDU’s SL Factory branch, said Thorn plans to canvass 90 factories after the holidays to come up with the bail money. We will not force the workers to pay, but this donation is voluntary,’ he said.
In solidarity with Cambodian garment workers and unions faced with this brutal repression, their campaign has been backed by IndustriALL, UNI Global Union, the International Trade Union Confederation, the Cambodia Labour Confederation, Labour Start and Workers United.
Following an International Labour Organisation (ILO) inspection – part of its Better Factories Cambodia (BFC) programme – two Zongtex Garment Manufacturing sweatshop sites closed shutters on March 21.
According to a Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) audit released last month, the Taiwanese-owned firm supplied clothing to some of the world’s leading high street names, such as Sears, Macy’s, the Moret Group (which makes clothing for Disney and DKNY), Komar Brands and Costco.
It also supplied to the US military’s Army & Air Force Exchange Service. According to Zongtex supervisor Srey Mao: ‘It was shut down soon after the ILO came to bring an underage girl out of the factory.’
Allegations in the WRC audit – the result of a years-long investigation – range from union-busting to child labour and poor occupational safety. One worker reported that she soiled herself at her sewing machine because she was not permitted to use the bathroom.
Workers attempted to for a union after the company took over the factory in 2010 from another company, Perfecta. But, the report found, ‘Zongtex management. . . illegally terminated workers in retaliation for their exercise of freedom of association’.
The audit also found that Zongtex repeatedly ignored legally binding decisions made by the Arbitration Council. WRC has monitored Zongtex since the investigation was launched in 2010.
Bent Gehrt, WRC field director for Southeast Asia, said he was suspicious that the current closure could be a way for the factory to open under a new name, but with the same management.
Gehrt added: ‘It seems to be the kind of factory that doesn’t really care about anything – and the buyers also don’t seem to care.’
