Bavet strike ends at all but 2 factories + Military might: Soldiers put end to Veng Sreng strike

[geovalin]

Mom Kunthear

Nearly all the factories in special economic zones (SEZs) across Svay Rieng’s Bavet town reopened over the weekend, ending a strike in which workers failed to coax employers into paying them a $50 bonus.

Pol Samphors, a garment worker at the Kingmaker factory in the Manhattan SEZ, said yesterday that management brought the more than 3,000 employees back into the fold by agreeing to pay half-day wages for shifts that went unfilled since April 21, the day they started striking.

“We did not get anything after protesting for more than a week,” she said. It wasn’t immediately clear how many other factories besides Kingmaker struck similar deals to pay employees half-day wages.

Thousands of workers commenced striking in mid-April, after Khmer New Year, when they learned that at least one factory had given workers a $50 bonus for not striking. The strikes quickly expanded, drawing workers from three SEZs in Bavet. One man was charged with property destruction.

Kem Chamreoun, a legal officer for the Collective Union of Movement of Workers, said yesterday that only two factories were still experiencing protests.

Has Bunthy, director of the provincial labour department, said some workers were still holding out for the half-day wage compromise, and about 10 per cent of workers at the Best Way factory still had not returned.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/bavet-strike-ends-all-2-factories

Military might: Soldiers put end to Veng Sreng strike

Mon, 5 May 2014

Chhay Channyda

Soldiers used force on Friday to end a strike at a garment factory on Veng Sreng Boulevard, where demands included a lunch bonus of 2,000 riel and an end to forced overtime, workers and union officials said yesterday.

Cheng Sophavy, an officer at the Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW), said that about 100 employees at Pemir Garment agreed to return to work today after military personnel threatened them at the factory gates on Friday.

“Paramilitary forces from Brigade 70 on Friday came to disperse workers protesting in front of the factory,” Sophavy said. “They did not settle with workers; they deployed paramilitary forces instead. They do so to discourage us and force us back to work.”

Worker representative Chan Saban, 21, said: “We protested without any brute force, so using soldiers to crack down is not right.”

Neither the factory nor the military brigade could be reached for comment.