Phnom Penh Post
Workers from the
Yung Wah Industrial (Cambodia) factories block a road in Kandal province
last week. Photograph: Vireak Mai/Phnom Penh Post
A provincial deputy governor claimed yesterday he had been given $6.5
million — supposedly borrowed from the national budget — to pay out
about 7,000 stranded workers at the closed-down Yung Wah garment
factories in Kandal province’s Takhmao town.
“The money that we have to pay workers is about $6.5 million. We will
pay some this evening and more tomorrow until they receive it all,”
Kandal deputy governor Phai Bun Chhoeun said.
The two factories, which closed in late December, would be sold,
along with the equipment and merchandise in them, Bun Chhoeun said.
“After that, we will work with the Ministry of Interior and the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs to sue the employer to pay the rest back to
us.”
Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia secretary-general Ken
Loo, however, said that although workers could be owed as much as $4.5
million, he did not expect the company’s assets to sell for more than
about $1 million.
Loo said the owners of Yung Wah I and II had not fled, as the workers claimed, but the company had simply gone into liquidation.
“Workers do not grasp this process,” he said, adding that the
government was under no obligation to pay workers beyond what was raised
by selling the factories.
“There’s no additional money that’s going to drop from the sky.”
Workers have protested at the factory since last Tuesday, blocking a road and demanding wages and remaining benefits.
Workers’ representative Sok Phalla, said yesterday protesters had been told they would be paid as much as $1,400 each.
Meanwhile, Loo hit out at Monitoring in the Dark, a report issued on
Monday that is critical of Better Factories Cambodia’s reporting of
conditions in garment factories.
“But they [the researchers] didn’t speak to a single factory,” he said.
“Many of the points made were inaccurate and flawed.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Mom Kunthear at
kunthear.mom@phnompenhpost.com
Shane Worrell at
shane.worrell@phnompenhpost.com
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