Vol. 77/No. 42      November 25, 2013

The garment workers are pressing for higher wages, safer workplaces and union protection. The Singapore-owned plant employs nearly 6,000 workers, producing for H&M, Gap and Levi’s. On Aug. 12 workers went on strike over eight demands, including a raise in the minimum wage from $80 to $150 a month, a $3 lunch stipend, removal of military police from the plant and that the company fire and sever ties with adviser and shareholder Meas Sotha, whom the workers identify with use of military cops in the plant.

Workers ended their strike Aug. 30, following a meeting among union representatives, company officials and the Phnom Penh municipal government. Four days later, the company fired 700 workers. The next day 4,000 workers marched to Phnom Penh City Hall to demand government intervention, after which the city government ordered SL Garment to reinstate all the workers. The company responded by shutting down production and effectively locking the workers out.

Since then negotiating sessions monitored by government officials have occurred between the company and the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union — the biggest of three unions in the plant with more than 2,500 members. Officials from the International Labor Organization’s Better Factories Cambodia and Cambodia’s Arbitration Council Foundation have sought to function as mediators.

“The two groups proposed putting 19 union leaders and activists before the Arbitration Council to decide whether they would be reinstated,” Kong Athit, vice president of the union, said in a Nov. 11 phone interview from Phnom Penh. “We did not accept this. The company wants to dismiss these workers, it’s part of a union-busting plan. It’s the whole union committee they want to get rid of.”

Athit said the most important issue for the union all along has been to get rid of the cops and shareholder Meas, who brought them into the plant.

“After we said no to put our members before the Arbitration Council, the company came up with the proposal that if we agree to dismiss the 19, they will dismiss Mr. Meas,” Athit said. “We said no. We have to push this back. After that we can start talking about other things. Tomorrow we are going to march again to the prime minister’s residence to press for a solution.”

The following day, some 1,000 workers took part in the march. Hundreds of riot police swarming the streets of the capital attacked the demonstration with water cannons, tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition. A woman selling rice on the roadside was killed and more than 20 others rushed to the hospital with gunshot wounds.

This was the latest of several actions the union has organized since workers at SL Garments went on strike. Police have put up roadblocks and tried to stop them previously from holding rallies outside the prime minister’s residence. On Aug. 27, workers broke through the barriers. On Sept. 27 the cops stopped them. Workers have kept demonstrating outside the plant since the strike started Aug. 12, despite repeated attacks by the military cops on the premises. On Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 there were violent clashes with 10 workers injured.

Kong Athit said some workers have drifted back to work during the three months and about 1,500 are now working with some production going on.

“Some have just left, they haven’t been paid for three months and are now looking for work elsewhere,” he said. “Members of the Apparel Workers Union are the backbone of the fight.”

The garment industry, which accounts for 80 percent of Cambodia’s total exports, employs 500,000 workers in more than 500 garment and shoe factories, with an average size of 1,000. More than 90 percent are women from rural villages moving into newly created industrial production centers. Ninety percent of the factories are without contracts.

The Labor Ministry reported that 1,600 workers fainted at some 20 factories last year due to heat, lack of ventilation, malnutrition, chemical exposure and long workdays. Unions give a higher figure.

Strikes and demonstrations at garment factories have increased fourfold over the past year.
 
 
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