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| Garment workers sit beside police officers during a protest in front of a factory owned by Sabrina (Cambodia) Garment Manufacturing in Kampong Speu province, west of the capital Phnom Penh June 3, 2013. REUTERS/Samrang Pring |
Reuters, June 11, 2013
PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Nearly 300 Cambodian garment workers who produce clothing for U.S. sportswear company Nike have been dismissed for taking part in strikes seeking higher pay that turned violent, according to their union and dismissal notices.
Low-cost labor has attracted Western brands to the Southeast Asian country and garments now account for around 75 percent of its exports, but strikes over pay and working conditions have become common.
Thousands of workers at Sabrina (Cambodia) Garment Manufacturing Corp went on strike for higher pay from May 21.
On Tuesday, hundreds of them protested at a provincial court to demand the release of eight workers and unionists arrested on June 3, when around 4,000 workers forced their way into the factory, clashing with colleagues who had remained on the job.
A union grouping some of the workers at the plant said 288 workers had been fired on June 6 and 7. It says they were dismissed for going on strike.
"This is completely illegal," Free Trade Union President Chea Mony said of the dismissals, adding the company had only fired people who said they had witnessed violence by the authorities.
"The strikes are legal," he said, adding Sabrina had repeatedly refused to hold negotiations.
According to dismissal letters seen by Reuters, the workers were sacked for flouting labor law and the factory's internal rules during the protests on June 3 and on May 27, when strikers clashed with police outside the plant.
A Sabrina official declined to comment.
The workers want the company, which employs more than 5,000 people at the plant, to give them $14 a month to help pay for transport, rent and healthcare costs on top of their $74 minimum wage.
Many of the strikers have drifted back to work in recent days. According to trade unionists, less than 1,000 remain out.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) monitors pay and working conditions at many factories in Cambodia but strikes and sometimes violent protests have been on the rise as unions emboldened by a shortage of skilled workers push for higher wages and improved safety.
The number of strikes by the country's more than 300,000 garment workers nearly quadrupled last year to 134, according to the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia, the main industry body. The 48 strikes so far this year are already more than in the whole of 2010 or 2011.
(Reporting by Prak Chan Thul; Editing by Alan Raybould)
5 comments:
If they ask too much raises, Companies will go to india or China.
ĆÂṂ ÔÑ ŚÂṂĐÂĆḤ ḤƯǸ ŚÊÑ 3099!!!
Where is strongman hun sen to help khmer ?
Wake up everyone, just look around, the whole world is laughing at such a leader who know nothing about politic except fighting one another for power and isn't 30years enough already? So, just look around, the more you hang onto power, the more they will take advantage of us and our downfall, be smarter, be united and be like others e.g Yingluck and Abisit, they have helped each other out in the name of 'community building', they focus on their job like, what else needs to be done for their nation. Not about power, it is about, how to help each other to grow and how to build a strong nation and so on.
Hun Sen, you needs to stop listening to outsiders, because they would never want what is best for us but to see us falling apart, that is all. Look, they done this to us before, for the last four hundreds years, so don't make the same mistake over and over again. Just get out from them crooks now, before it is too late. Because they are very good at lying, decieving and manipulation. As you can see, recently, they tried to eliminate some of our MPs, why? to continue to make us weak and be at their mercy at all costs.
VC and Chinese crooks ambidtion is, to take over the 'whole' srok khmer and to make sure we are finished. They'd done this before and they will do it again and again. Hun Sen, you have to know this fact, once you are no longer useful to them, they will find way to get rid of you too. But it is not too late yet, just turn around and say, 'enough is enough'. You are a leader and you have the right to make the decision based on, what is right and just. Right now, I can see you are following the same foot steps as Kingta, they promised you this or that, but the truth is, they are lying and decieving, they are using you to do their dirty work for them.
They are borrowing your hands and say ' well done...we will watch your back', but, for what? that is called 'helping to destroy'. So please, they lied once, twice but don't make it three times, ok. Because, the truth is, you are just another khmer like me and I don't want you to be the next victim like Pol Pot, Kingta, Hawk Lundi...,either. So, you have to wake up now and try to join hand with the CNRP for the benefit of our country and nation or else, we all be doomed!, simple as that.
Cambodia must move a way from low wage intensive labor! If these dirt poor Cambodian people earn $1 and they spend $3 including housing, food, health, transportation, clean water, electricity, tuition for their children...! What is left for these dirt poor Cambodian to do or choose? These dirt poor Cambodian are the new working poor without the possibility of escaping poverty! These dirt poor Cambodian people can work until they die and they can never escape poverty!
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