At Embattled Factory, an Unmovable Manager
In an industry rife with labor strikes, the workers at the SL Garment Factory in recent months have been strident, and sometimes violent, in their efforts to have their demands for better working conditions met by factory bosses. Tuesday’s clash with police near Phnom Penh’s Stung Meanchey bridge, where one woman was shot dead and several others injured by authorities, was the third time since September that protests by SL workers have turned violent. Many of the demands by the SL workers are typical: higher wages and a lunch stipend, but others are not. Among the workers’ central demands is the resignation of Meas Sotha, an administrator and shareholder in the SL factory, who workers say is responsible for bringing armed security guards into the plant in recent months to intimidate workers inclined to unionize. … “Everything changed since he started working here,” said Oum Visal, a factory representative of the Coalition of Cambodia Apparel Workers Democratic Union (CCAWDU), which has organized what is now a three-month-long strike by its members in the SL factory. Mr. Visal said that since Mr. Sotha took on an active role in managing the factory midway through this year, armed security forces have been stationed in and around the factory, union leaders have been targeted for intimidation and strikes have increasingly been met with force. … Regardless of the death and injuries, Mr. Sotha, the factory’s shareholder, said Tuesday that he still has no plans to step aside, adding that he is neither responsible for the actions of the police nor deserving of the scorn from the protesting workers. … Ken Loo, secretary-general of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia, of which SL Garment Factory is a member, said that regardless of their grievances, it was not within a union’s right to demand management changes.
Aun Pheap and Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/at-embattled-factory-an-unmovable-manager-46900/
