Cambodian Walmart Workers Expose Abuse at Factory

Published on Jan 15, 2013

Hear from Sor Sokty. The 25-year-old Cambodian garment worker has been keeping vigil in front of a Walmart and H&M supplier after her employer shuttered the factory owing workers thousands of dollars. Workers are left with no jobs after years of service, debt and with few options.

*Apologies for crude editing. Editor does not speak Cambodian.

 http://youtu.be/eB178GEDPEk
January 14th, 2013
Warehouse Workers United

Workers at a garment factory in Phnom Penh, Cambodia have spent the past several days on a 24-hour vigil in front of Kingsland Garment in the capital city’s garment district. They say managers of an underwear supplier to retail giants Walmart and H&M shuttered the factory and fled while still owing workers hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid wages and benefits.

Workers are maintaining a camp in front of the factory in hopes of catching managers if they return to take machinery and equipment out of the factory.

Workers are suffering now.

After the factory abruptly closed, many workers have been evicted from their homes because they cannot pay their rent. Workers believe that the factory closed with plans to reopen once it sheds long-time employees who have seniority and benefits.

They say the new factory will be similar to other Walmart suppliers internationally and domestically that rely on temporary workers who will work on 3-month, short-term contracts. Such a scheme will prevent workers from forming a union or having any job security.

Workers say they are owed a combined $800,000 in severance pay since the factory closed Dec. 29. Cambodian law requires a certain amount of severance for workers, but the company is offering less than half.

International organizations, Warehouse Workers United and others are calling on Walmart and other retailers to force the garment factory owners to make appropriate severance payments now before workers are further harmed.

Voices from the Workers

Since September, the women at the factory, known as Kingsland, are making half their previous salary or about $40 a month.

Sor Sokty

25-years-old

Worked at the factory for 5 years

“It’s been so difficult to feed my family. I can’t afford enough food because it’s so expensive, and I’ve had to borrow so much money. I owe money to my landlord and he keeps threatening to evict me.

“We want Walmart and the government to find a proper solution according to the law. Workers are victims here. It’s so hard to live without proper pay.”

When the factory was open that they were forced to work overtime making underwear for Walmart…

Pich Piseth

32-years-old

Worked at the factory for 13 years

“I came here to join the protest because I can’t stand what the owner of factory has done by shutting down the factory and only giving us $46 for each year we worked in severance pay.

“We just want to be compensated according to the law. Some of us have been here 10 or 15 years. The factory isn’t thinking about the workers. We want the owner and Walmart to take responsibility for this.

“About 180 workers join us every day and at night 30 or 40 workers sleeping in front of the factory gate because we are afraid they will come to take the equipment out.”

Heoun Rapi

22-years-old

Worked at the factory for 8 years

“I am 6 months pregnant. It was difficult to work while I’m pregnant but even though it’s hard I need to struggle. I don’t know what to do. I can’t survive with the salary cut. I will protest like this until there is a solution. I want the factory and Walmart to rush to give us our severance pay.”

Ly Omrin

35-years-old

Worked at the factory for 7 years

“Before the factory shut down, we have no work to do and they only gave us half of our salary. It’s not reasonable. In this factory we have the union but it’s the pro-factory union, they never find solution for workers when we have problem.”

Peang Keurn

28-years-old

Former Worker

“I worked here for 3 months in 2008. They have lots of problems in this factory. It’s hard to take leave when we are busy or sick. They deny us so we just go to work even though we were sick. Sometimes we have to leave without permission and when we go back to work we face blame. We were always afraid of losing our job at that time. Inside the factory it was very hot and the bathroom was very dirty and not enough air. Back then there was a lot of fainting.”
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Workers Supplying Wal-Mart Continue Protests 

By Phok Dorn and Dene-Hern Chen - January 14, 2013

About 80 workers from a garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district—which supplies women’s underwear to U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart—protested yesterday, demanding that the factory owner settle their severance payments, workers and union representatives said.
Workers at the Kingsland Garment Cambodia factory were told in September that they no longer had to come to work due to a lack of orders, but that they would be paid 50 percent of their salary each month until work resumed in January, said Phoung Phearum, 23, a worker at the factory.
In December, however, the workers stopped receiving paychecks and a factory union representative told them that the owners had declared bankruptcy and left the country.
As a result, about 200 workers have taken to protesting outside the factory’s gates since January 1. Twenty of those workers are now sleeping outside the factory at night after they caught factory staff attempting to remove the sewing machines in the middle of the night on January 4.
“We are demanding the owner pay us our severance, our annual bonuses, our firing salary and our final salary. We demand the factory pay us according to the Labor Law, and we will protest until we have a solution,” Mr. Phearum said, adding that he had worked at the same factory for five years and was owed more than $1,000 in compensation.
He also said workers had already submitted complaints to the ministries of labor and social affairs.
Moeun Tola, labor head of the Community Legal Education Center—which is providing legal aid and technical assistance to the protesting workers—said his organization is pushing for the case to be heard by the Arbitration Council.
“If the company closes, even if they have bankruptcy, the law requires the employer to pay severance pay, compensation and a notice to terminate the employment contract,” he said.
Kingsland’s failure to inform the workers’ of their situation is an example of Wal-Mart not making sure members of its supply chain treat workers in a fair manner, said Nick Rudikoff, global affairs coordinator of Warehouse Workers United (WWU), a U.S.-based union representing 5.5 million workers in different sectors.
“The situation in Kingsland is yet another example of injustice in Wal-Mart’s global supply chain,” said Mr. Rudikoff, who arrived in Cambodia on Thursday to investigate the situation. “Wal-Mart needs to make sure its suppliers follow the law, and the workers that have unfairly lost work and lost time working need to be fairly compensated.”
“We are standing in solidarity with the Kingsland workers and with workers around the world who make and transport goods for Wal-Mart.”
Huon Soeur, deputy director at the Ministry of Labor’s department of labor conflict, confirmed that the ministry had received the workers’ complaint but declined to comment further.
Representatives of Kingsland could not be reached for comment yesterday, and Wal-Mart representatives did not immediately respond to questions.