More workers join Svay Rieng strike

A view of the entrance to the Manhattan Special Economic Zone in Svay Rieng province. Photograph: Derek Stout/Phnom Penh Post

14 February 2013
By Mom Kunthear
The Phnom Penh Post

Workers from at least six more factories in Bavet town’s Manhattan and Tay Seng Special Economic Zones joined about 5,000 workers who had been on strike since yesterday for a minimum wage increase and better working conditions.

While most of the 10 Svay Rieng province factories’ workers walked out of their workplaces to return home yesterday, more than 600 workers from Long Bright, one of the factories on strike since Tuesday, marched to the provincial hall to ask officials to intervene on their behalf, Pav Sina, president of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers, said yesterday.

“The meeting with provincial hall officials has not found a resolution yet, but the officials will send a working group to go down to the factory,” Sina said.

The working group would meet today with workers’ representatives and the company to discuss the workers’ demands, he said.

“We hope everything will be resolved and the strike will end after the meeting is done,” he said.

Va Sarorn, director of the Svay Rieng provincial labour department, said yesterday that work had been suspended for all workers from all factories in the Special Economic Zones – areas with high concentrations of factories – until a resolution had been found.

Meanwhile, about 7,000 workers at the Yung Wah Industrial garment factory complex, which apparently has closed, continued to block road 21B in Kandal province’s Takhmao town for a second day to demand their two-month-overdue salaries.

Um Visal, labour dispute resolution officer at Coalition of Cambodia Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union, said yesterday that a provincial committee was inspecting the factory yesterday to determine whether to sell the company’s equipment in order to pay the workers’ salaries.