Cambodia: Garment workers facing ruthless victimisation

Hong Kong, Taiwan and Chinese companies try to smash unions after Cambodia’s largest ever strike – solidarity needed!

Thursday, 18 November 2010.

Dikang

Source: ChinaWorker.info

In Cambodia, 94 workplace union representatives remain suspended from their jobs with no income, following the magnificent four-day national strike in September. A further 685 workers who protested the suspensions of these worker representatives have been dismissed, according to the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union (CCAWDU). The companies, many Chinese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong owned have been using the law courts, spewing out injunctions, and hiding behind a battery of undemocratic anti-union legislation, in a blatant attempt to crush union organisation in the country’s main manufacturing sector.

The unions are now threatening new strikes: “We will do the strikes in front of stores and clothing shops, and we will announce to the world that garment factories in Cambodia abuse workers’ rights,” the secretary general of CCAWDU, Ek Sopheakdey, has warned.

In September, Cambodian garment workers staged the largest strike in the country’s history. This was against the government’s imposition of a $US61 per month minimum wage, a figure that falls far short of workers’ needs. The strike was almost a “general strike” encompassing more than half the total factory workforce – around 200,000 workers. The workers demanded the “wage floor” be lifted to US$93. The strike echoed similar big movements of the “sweatshop proletariat” in Bangladesh, China and other low-wage Asian economies in the past few months. In all these places GDP is surging forward but this brings almost no benefits to the poor majority. The increasing cost of food and fuel, as well as rampant speculation, have eaten into already low living standards.

ILO’s role disastrous

The union leadership, accepting the disastrous advice and offer of “mediation” from the UN’s International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, called off the strike after four days in the elusive hope of “negotiations”. The ILO has played a scurrilous role that should brand it forever as an organisation of strike-breakers. Rather than negotiate, the foreign capitalists that dominate the industry have continued to conduct a naked policy of class war. A total of 779 workers’ representatives have been suspended, sacked or now face legal action by 20 companies hit by the strike.

The ILO’s treacherous role is again shown by its latest intervention, to propose the suspended workers sign a “letter of regret” – undertaking not to engage in new strike action and to abide by company regulations – as a condition for securing their jobs back. All the victimised workers have rightly refused to sign this document. Explaining the ILO position, Tuomo Poutiainen who is the chief technical adviser for the International Labour Organisation’s Better Factories Cambodia programme said, “It’s necessary that both sides will take a bit of a step back and try to find those positive steps.” Yet there are few signs of any stepping back by the bosses! Further strikes, “wouldn’t be very helpful,” said Poutiainen (The Phnom Penh Post, 27 October 2010).

Chinese capital

Capitalists from Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China are the top three investors in Cambodia, with a combined production base of 230 factories employing 276,000 workers (source: Garment Manufacturers’ Association of Cambodia). These companies are at the forefront of attempts to punish the strikers and crush trade unionism. One typical representative of this group is the Hong Kong company Addchance, which supplies big global brands like H&M, Zara and Marks & Spencer. Its chairman, Sung Chung-kwun, defended his decision to suspend and attempt to be rid of 24 union representatives at the company: “They have been trouble-makers for a long time. They went on strike without obtaining government approval in advance, and it disrupted production and cost us money,” he told the South China Morning Post (15 November).

For capitalists such as Sung, fundamental democratic rights such as the right to strike and to organise a trade union, one that defends workers’ interests, is ‘trouble-making’ and should be banned. The attitude of these companies towards workers’ rights shows there is no difference between the capitalists from authoritarian China, semi-authoritarian Hong Kong or “democratic” Taiwan: forced to choose between profits and democratic rights they will always choose the former! The same is true of the big multinationals based in “democratic” capitalist Europe and the United States – they are fully aware of the union-busting slave labour practises of their suppliers in low-wage Asian countries. Yet they hide behind hypocritical codes of “ethical conduct” that were designed to throw dust in the eyes of public opinion while they are routinely violated in practise.

Beware the “rule of law”

In Cambodia the main tactic of the bosses is to use the legal system and the labour law, crafted with the help of the United Nations which effectively ran the country in the past, to shackle workers’ organisations. The companies argue the unions acted “illegally” by failing to observe government rules for strikes. In reality, the legal system as in every class society is weighted in favour of the big owners of property. Assisted by an army of expensive lawyers, the capitalists want to weave a legal web around the unions to deprive them of any possibility to fight.

The bosses’ central argument is that the four main unions involved in the 13-17 September strike failed to give the legally required seven days notice for the stoppage. This claim rests on a technical detail. The first letter from the unions, dated August 19, threatened strikes if the companies refused negotiations on the minimum wage. A subsequent letter, dated September 10, used a different term – calling for talks on a “living wage”. The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) claims this difference in wording represents an entirely new set of demands and, as it came just three days in advance of the strike, breaches the Labour Law. This despite the fact that the unions’ central demand – for US$93 a month – is clearly stated in both letters.

Based on this cheap semantic trick, dozens of individual lawsuits have been filed against workers’ representatives. In addition, at least ten companies have filed for damages against the leaders of the Cambodian Labour Confederation (CLC). This replicates the pattern of union-busting antics deployed by bosses in the advanced capitalist countries. There is a clear warning here as to what the capitalist politicians and think tanks mean when they talk about the need for “rule of law” as a priority for democratic reform in China and other authoritarian states. By this they want stronger legal powers for companies and employers, which in no way translates into greater legal protection or freedoms – of assembly, organisation and political association – for the working class and poor majority.

This struggle has shown the government to be relatively powerless in dealing with the companies. Prime Minister Hun Sen called for the companies to allow workers to return to their jobs. “The government has tried to negotiate to help the workers return to work, but GMAC and the factories will not listen to them,” said one union leader.

Workers cannot put any confidence in this government. It is necessary to turn instead to the wider working class and other oppressed layers with a campaign linking the reinstatement of victimised workers with determination to pursue the US$93 a month wage demand without compromise. Unfortunately, in a misplaced gesture of moderation, union leaders have dropped this demand. It is also crucial that workers’ organisations internationally rally to the cause of Cambodian workers by protesting to the government authorities and singling out the companies and global brands involved for maximum pressure: “An injury to one is an injury to all!”

Send protest letters to:

H.E. Mr Hun Sen,

Prime Minister,

Phnom Penh

Kingdom of Cambodia

Fax: +855 23 88 06 24