Garment strikes hit Cambodia in record numbers in 2013, with disgruntled workers taking their calls for an increase in wages to the streets. This year, the protests have been even bigger and demands met with deadly force. Strikes, walkouts and other forms of industrial civil disobedience culminated in January with a violent attack on strikers who had resorted to blocking roads and throwing rocks at police to voice their demands for a $160 monthly minimum wage.
Four people were killed in the brutal crackdown on 3 January. Chea was one of 23 arrested at the scene and detained. It took rights groups and the media days to locate the detainees. One of the disappeared, 16-year-old Khem Sophath, who is reported to have been shot in the chest, is yet to be found. Chea said he spent two days at police headquarters, where he claims he was forced to strip down to his underwear and sleep on a sheet of paper on the floor. He was then transferred in secret to a remote prison near the Vietnamese border along with the 22 others. Twenty-one remain in the prison, which rights groups have labelled ‘among the harshest’ in Cambodia. Chea lost his job following his arrest, but said the injuries he sustained at the hands of security forces would make it impossible for him to work anyway. Unable to hear out of one ear or use one of his hands, Chea believes he will be handicapped for the rest of his life.
Dave Welsh, country director for labour rights group Solidarity Center, said January’s crackdown is just one example of the government’s ‘blanket assault’ on trade unions and workers. ‘It’s hard to imagine anything further from freedom of association than what we have here at the moment,’ he said.
While global brands have spoken out against the treatment of striking workers and supported calls to raise wages in Cambodia, many critics say that they too are part of the problem. Campaigners say that few of the factories that are sub-contracted to produce garments for high-street brands such as Gap and Banana Republic meet international standards of best practice. Basic health and safety is regularly ignored, with recent audits of a factory producing clothes for H&M showing that chemical waste was not being properly disposed of, while workers were not provided with equipment or adequate washing facilities to protect them from the chemicals. Mass faintings at factories across Cambodia are a regular occurrence and military police have supported enforced overtime by helping owners to trap employees inside workplaces.
Exports in clothes are Cambodia’s largest foreign currency earner – the majority of which go to the US and European Union – and continues to grow, bringing in $5.53 billion last year alone, according to government figures.
‘It just shows how profitable conditions have been for manufacturers and buyers but not for workers,’ said Joel Preston, a consultant with the Community Legal Education Centre. ‘There is a huge amount of money to be made but none of it is making its way into the workers’ pockets.’
Ath Thorn, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union, agreed: ‘Cambodia has more, so the workers should have more.’
Taken from The New Internationalist
Four people were killed in the brutal crackdown on 3 January. Chea was one of 23 arrested at the scene and detained. It took rights groups and the media days to locate the detainees. One of the disappeared, 16-year-old Khem Sophath, who is reported to have been shot in the chest, is yet to be found. Chea said he spent two days at police headquarters, where he claims he was forced to strip down to his underwear and sleep on a sheet of paper on the floor. He was then transferred in secret to a remote prison near the Vietnamese border along with the 22 others. Twenty-one remain in the prison, which rights groups have labelled ‘among the harshest’ in Cambodia. Chea lost his job following his arrest, but said the injuries he sustained at the hands of security forces would make it impossible for him to work anyway. Unable to hear out of one ear or use one of his hands, Chea believes he will be handicapped for the rest of his life.
Dave Welsh, country director for labour rights group Solidarity Center, said January’s crackdown is just one example of the government’s ‘blanket assault’ on trade unions and workers. ‘It’s hard to imagine anything further from freedom of association than what we have here at the moment,’ he said.
While global brands have spoken out against the treatment of striking workers and supported calls to raise wages in Cambodia, many critics say that they too are part of the problem. Campaigners say that few of the factories that are sub-contracted to produce garments for high-street brands such as Gap and Banana Republic meet international standards of best practice. Basic health and safety is regularly ignored, with recent audits of a factory producing clothes for H&M showing that chemical waste was not being properly disposed of, while workers were not provided with equipment or adequate washing facilities to protect them from the chemicals. Mass faintings at factories across Cambodia are a regular occurrence and military police have supported enforced overtime by helping owners to trap employees inside workplaces.
Exports in clothes are Cambodia’s largest foreign currency earner – the majority of which go to the US and European Union – and continues to grow, bringing in $5.53 billion last year alone, according to government figures.
‘It just shows how profitable conditions have been for manufacturers and buyers but not for workers,’ said Joel Preston, a consultant with the Community Legal Education Centre. ‘There is a huge amount of money to be made but none of it is making its way into the workers’ pockets.’
Ath Thorn, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union, agreed: ‘Cambodia has more, so the workers should have more.’
Taken from The New Internationalist
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