ITGLWF castigates Cambodian employers for harassing union workers

05 Dec '05

3 min read

International Textile, Garment & Leather Workers' Federation (ITGLWF) reported that there is a growing trend among employers in Cambodia to treat industrial relations as a criminal matter, a practice to which Cambodia's notoriously flawed and corrupt legal system lends itself well, according to the Global Union Federation representing workers in the garment industry.

Says Neil Kearney, General Secretary of the Brussels-based International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Federation: “If convicted, union leaders face a double whammy: in addition to facing hefty fines or prison sentences, workers are barred from holding union office under Cambodian law if they have any sort of criminal conviction”.

The latest example of how employers resort to the courts for the purposes of union-busting comes from a Hong-Kong-owned company, City New Garment Factory Co Ltd.

Last December, the company took a union activist to court for insulting a passing driver who had banged into his motorcycle outside the factory. The judge threatened to imprison the worker, but the company dropped the charges after he agreed to pay a fine and resign from his job.

Nearly a year later, the company has now brought charges in the Phnom Penh Municipal Court against four union leaders, including the President of the union, who had witnessed the earlier incident and testified in court on behalf of the worker involved. The company is alleging that the four gave false testimony in court.

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