Meeting ends in stalemate over wages

Rong Chhun

12 March 2013
By Shane Worrell and Mom Kunthear
The Phnom Penh Post

A DECISION on raising the minimum wage in the garment sector was thrust back in the direction of the government yesterday, after unions and the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia failed to agree on an increase.

“The meeting failed because neither side changed their minds,” Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodia Confederation of Unions, told the Post late yesterday at the completion of a third day of talks spread over a fortnight.

The Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union, Collective Union of Movement of Workers and CCU stood firm on their demands for the minimum wage to be increased from $61 to $100, Chhun said, while other unions – described by some as pro-government – had been willing accept $91.

“The employers still rejected our demands,” Chhun said. “They agreed to increase only $9. The last resort would be to gather the workers to make their own demands for an increase.”

American Center for International Labor Solidarity country manager Dave Welsh said a time frame for an increase now seemed as uncertain as the amount itself.

“There’s been no clear-cut resolution or a definite schedule for the government to step in,” he said, adding, however, that the government had a lot of room to manoeuvre.

“It’s not for brands or the industry to dictate to the government. We would encourage unions to treat this as the first step towards getting something more systematic when it comes to increases.”

GMAC Secretary-General Ken Loo also said the government needed to take a stance on the issue but added that talks would continue as soon as next week. “We’ll keep talking; it’s not the end. I think what’s important, though, is that unions need to have a unified position.

“Some were willing to go down further than [$91]. Our position is what it has been for the past two weeks.”

One thing GMAC was flexible on, Loo added, was the financial contribution of brands when it came to paying wages.

“We have no problem paying the workers anything – so long as the [extra] money is coming from the buyers.”

Outside the meeting yesterday, about 60 workers from the shuttered Kingsland Garment factory protested over a list of workers set to be paid out as a part of a $200,000 deal involving two suppliers.

“We want the ministry to remove [17] names from the list because they left Kingsland before it closed,” workers’ representative Oun Bouy, said.

Welsh, whose organisation is assisting, asked workers to be patient while the issue was addressed.