Uneasy calm in Bavet as factories ordered shut

BAVET CITY, Svay Rieng province – The government has ordered all factories here to shut down until Thursday at the earliest in a bid to keep escalating strikes from spiraling out of control and spreading nationwide. “[Provincial] Governor Chieng Am said in a meeting yesterday [Monday] that we should tell the factories they should close for a few days because the strike is getting bigger and bigger, but he did not say for how many days,” said In Visoth, the governor’s chief of administration. “The government is worried the strike could spread if we do not take action soon,” he said. The strikes started off small after the Khmer New Year holiday earlier this month, when some workers heard that colleagues at another factory had been paid a one-time $50 bonus for having not gone on strike over the past few months and decided to demand the same deal for themselves. The strikers gradually rallied more workers to their case and brought work to a standstill on Monday at more than 30 Bavet factories employing some 30,000 workers. ... At the Manhattan Special Economic Zone (SEZ), which houses 22 of the city’s garment factories and has seen the worst of the latest strikes, concertina wire stretched across the front gate. Armed military police officers newly posted to the entrance stood by in the shade of a leafy tree. Inside the SEZ’s administration office, frustrated investors were gathered around a long conference table debating their next move. At the head of the table sat Larry Kao, the SEZ’s managing director. He said the factories here were told to stay closed until Friday.

 Zsombor Peter and Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/uneasy-calm-in-bavet-as-factories-ordered-shut-57723/