Garment Workers Block Road, Protest for Higher Wages

There were major traffic delays along Phnom Penh’s Veng Sreng Boulevard in Pur Senchey district Wednesday after about 200 garment workers from the Alim Cambodia Co. Ltd. garment factory formed a gated roadblock and protested for higher wages. A line of halted container trucks stretched for hundreds of meters in either direction from the protest site from 8 a.m., when the roadblock was set up, until about 2:30 p.m., when it was disassembled because of rain. … Another worker, 21-year-old Kim Ratha, said she had been working for the South Korean-owned factory for two years, but took part in the roadblock to force management to “find a solution for us.” “We want the factory to increase our payment, because they pay us only $89 per month, but they pay the new workers $93—this is not fair for us,” Ms. Ratha said. … Ultimately, however, the decision was made to stop protesting when it began to rain, according to Srut Chet, 34, a representative for the Collective Union of Movement of Workers, who said the workers had already been protesting for three days inside the factory, but to no avail. … “We will rent trucks to transport our workers to a demonstration in front of the Ministry of Labor to find a solution tomorrow,” he [Srut Chet] said.

 Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/garment-workers-block-road-protest-for-higher-wages-46954/