Phnom Penh, Cambodia - When
volleys of rocks and bricks thrown between hundreds of rioting garment
workers and police gave way to the sound of live ammunition, Sve Ka
ducked for cover behind a large, plastic drink vendor's cooler on Veng
Sreng Boulevard.
"Cambodia's crazy!" the young woman said with a nervous chuckle as bullets whizzed by.
By
the time demonstrators cleared the streets and traffic moved along the
busy road as usual, police gunfire had killed a 49-year-old street-food
vendor and wounded at least nine others, according to a count taken by
rights group Licadho and the Community Legal Education Centre (CLEC), a local non-government organisation.
The
initially peaceful march on November 12 marked the three-month
anniversary of the day garment workers at SL Garment Processing
(Cambodia) Ltd walked off the job in protest over low wages and working
conditions at the factory, which supplies Gap Inc and H&M. SL also
supplied Levi Strauss & Co, until the brand stopped buying from the
factory in August.
With
just $4.45bn in exports last year, according to the Garment
Manufacturers' Association in Cambodia, the country's garment and
textile industry accounted for more than 80 percent of its total exports
in 2012. SL is among Cambodia's largest factories.
Internationally,
Cambodian garment workers are often seen as enjoying comparatively
better conditions than factory workers in other Asian garment producers
such as Bangladesh. But problems with ventilation and workers fainting
en masse because of poor nutrition are a common occurrence in Cambodian
factories.
Low wages
Although
the ruling Cambodian People's Party earlier this year raised the
monthly minimum wage for garment and footwear workers from $61 to $75, a
joint study released in September by UK-based Labour Behind the Label
and CLEC reported that single workers need an income of at least $150 to
cover their basic needs. The same study found 25 percent of the 95
workers sampled were seriously malnourished.
 |
| Phnom
Penh policemen water cannon demonstrating SL garment factory workers
during a demonstration that turned deadly in the capital last week [Kara
Fox/Al Jazeera] |
Strikes
at Cambodian garment factories are endemic, but often short-lived and
end with few, if any, concessions from factory management.
Calamity ensued last week when about 600 striking SL employees - along with staffers from the Cambodian Labour Confederation and the Coalition
of Cambodian Apparel Workers' Democratic Union (CCAWDU), which
represents a large majority of SL's 6,000 or so workers - clashed with
police officers wielding riot shields and batons at Phnom Penh's Stung
Meanchey bridge.
The
show of force blocked the march from the factory to the home of Prime
Minister Hun Sen, where they intended to hold a demonstration.
Observers
say the police blockade ignited an explosion fuelled by months of SL's
seemingly insincere negotiations with employees, hostile labour policy,
and government indifference towards workers' rights.
Failed negotiations
The
strike began on August 12, when about 4,000 workers at the SL 1 factory
left work in protest against the presence of armed military police
inside the factory. Company shareholder Meas Sotha said the move was
part of an effort to protect the factory, but union representatives
perceived it as intimidation meant to expel the union.
Workers
at the SL 2 factory also joined the strike, and CCAWDU listed a number
of employees' demands: a raise in their minimum monthly salary from $75
to $150, a $3 per day subsidy for their lunch, and the ousting of Sotha
from SL.
Government officials mediated several talks between the union and the company, but they all ended in deadlock. Kong
Athit, CCAWDU's vice president, said SL management refused to take
employees' demands seriously, giving union officials take-it-or-leave-it
responses.
SL's general manager did not respond to repeated calls for comment on the situation this week. Employers
refusing to negotiate with its workers is common in the Southeast Asian
country, said David Welsh, country coordinator for labour rights group
Solidarity Center/ACILS.
"It's
the norm," Welsh said. "The fact is if unions were allowed to engage in
seriously collective bargaining as the [labour] law requires, there
would be fewer industrial strikes."
The government is often unwilling to enforce these laws, said Moeun Tola, head of the labour programme at the Community Legal Education Centre.
The legislation forbids employers from discriminating against union
activism, and imposes penalties such as fines and one-month imprisonment
for violators.
"The
Ministry of Labour is too passive, and they don't have any will to
promote freedom of association," said Tola, who noted that no employer
in Cambodia has ever been sued for discriminating against unions, even
though companies across the kingdom routinely purge their workforces of
union activists. "[Factories] negotiate with the unions only for show,
especially for the brands and the international labour rights
associations."
During last week's demonstrations, the growing number of protesters hurled rocks and bricks at police, who then unleashed water cannons against the crowd.
Police
retreated across the bridge, leaving at least three officers trapped in
the Stung Meanchey pagoda complex. One officer managed to escape from a
police truck, which demonstrators later flipped over and burned in the
street. At least two took shelter in the complex, but were stripped of
their batons, shields and body armour by protesters.
If it was really a peaceful demonstration, they shouldn't have been
throwing rocks in the first place. What are [police] going to do? Stand
there and be stoned?
- Ken Loo, secretary general of the Garment Manufacturers' Association
|
Bystander killed
The
police, at that point numbering more than 100, advanced across the
bridge firing tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition into the
crowd. Toak
Tin, a monk at Stung Meanchey pagoda, said he witnessed police officers
shoot two unarmed demonstrators inside the pagoda complex.
After
the onslaught, family members of Eng Sokhom, a 49-year-old rice vendor
who was not involved in the demonstration, said she was shot in the
chest and died before arriving at a local hospital.
Police
arrested 37 people, including seven monks, according to a count by the
United Nations' Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Rights
groups and politicians within the opposition Cambodia National Rescue
Party immediately decried the use of lethal force against unarmed
protesters.
"According
to peaceful demonstration law ... anyone who creates violence [during a
peaceful demonstration] can be punished under the law," said Yim
Sovann, a CNRP spokesman said. Party whip
Son Chhay echoed the sentiment, calling for the prosecution of Phnom
Penh Municipal Police Chief Chuon Sovann, after Chhay visited gunshot
victims a day after the riot. "This is not the first time," Chhay said.
Calling
the SL demonstration "peaceful" does not accurately describe the
rock-throwing, car-burning mob that police shot at, said Ken Loo,
secretary general of the Garment Manufacturers' Association in
Cambodia.
"If
it was really a peaceful demonstration, they shouldn't have been
throwing rocks in the first place," Loo said. "What are [police] going
to do? Stand there and be stoned?"
The Ministry of Interior has formed a committee to investigate the shooting, said Council of Ministers spokesman Phay Siphan.
The
factory is on holiday for Cambodia's Water Festival, and is not
scheduled to reopen until Wednesday, Athit said. Until then, CCAWDU is
in wait-and-see mode, as they are unsure whether SL will obey the order,
or if the union will end the strike.
Although
the government seems to be stepping in on the workers' behalf in this
case, Tola of CLEC doubts it will lead to widespread reform in strike
resolution, or police response toward demonstrators.
"I
don't feel any optimism that the government will change its tactics. It
sounds to me like they're incapable of it," Tola said. |
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