Unions warn of strikes over gov’t rejection of new branch

30 January 2015
The Cambodia Daily
Government / Labor / Labor policy and administration / Ministries and other national bodies / Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training / Unions
Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW) / International Labour Organization (ILO) / Law on Labor / Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training / Pav Sina

A group of eight trade unions Thursday said the government has turned down every one of their applications to form local branches at the country’s garment factories since early last year and threatened mass strikes if the rejections continue. At a press conference in Phnom Penh, union representatives said they had submitted a total of 103 applications for local branches since mass garment worker protests for higher wages were suppressed on January 3, 2014, when military police opened fire, killing at least five and wounding more than 40. Having managed to get applications approved in previous years, they said, not one has passed the Labor Ministry since. … The factories often complain that the garment industry has too many unions, making it hard to settle labor disputes, and want thresholds raised for how many workers are required to start a union. The Labor Ministry is in the process of writing a new Labor Law that might address the issue, but in May the International Labor Organization said the latest draft was overly restrictive on unions and was out of step with international conventions to which Cambodia is a signatory. …

 Mech Dara
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/unions-warn-of-strikes-over-govt-rejection-of-new-branches-77031/