Garment Workers Go Back on Strike Over Unpaid Wages
Thousands of garment workers from four factories have gone back on strike this week to protest a decision by their employers to withhold pay for the days they did not work during recent nationwide strikes. Between 8,500 and 12,500 workers at four factories—two in Phnom Penh, one in Kandal and another in Kompong Cham—have gone back on strike, union representatives and workers said Tuesday. “This is the second day of strikes by workers who are demanding that the two factories [in Phnom Penh] pay them because they cut their wages 100 percent for the time they were off during the strike,” said Pav Sina, president of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers. … According to unions, the factories where the workers have gone back on strike are refusing to pay them anything for the days they stayed away. Cheam Sovan, a garment worker at Quality Textile in Phnom Penh, said she usually earns $140 a month, but the factory docked $18 for the days she was on strike last month. She said more than half the factory’s roughly 1,500 garment workers were now refusing to return. “We want to negotiate with the company owner to demand that he pay all of us during the strike, but no one comes to meet us,” she said. At Quint Major Industrial in Kandal, garment worker Yin Sam Oeun said that she and about 6,000 of her colleagues entered the factory on Tuesday and sat down at their stations but refused to do any work. …
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/garment-workers-go-back-on-strike-over-unpaid-wages-50580/
