Phnom Penh Post
As more than 80 workers from the shuttered Kingsland Garment factory
enter day two of a hunger strike today, their representatives will meet
with retail giants Walmart and H&M seeking more than $200,000 in
owed wages and benefits.
To heap pressure on the two buyers – both of which claim their
business with Kingsland ended months before the factory closed – workers
began their hunger strike outside the Phnom Penh factory yesterday.
“We’re not eating ... to seek a fair solution regarding our wages,” worker Or Sokuong said.
The Hong Kong-based owners fled in late December, workers claim,
after months of reduced production, leaving hundreds broke and out of
work.
Today’s meeting will bring together workers, labour-rights groups,
H&M and its supplier New Archid as well as Walmart and its supplier
Saramax.
H&M spokeswoman Anna Eriksson declined to comment yesterday on
what the company expected the outcome of the meeting would be, but said
the matter was of “high priority”.
She reiterated, however, that H&M ceased its orders from the
factory last year, and it was Kingsland’s responsibility to pay wages
and benefits.
Workers have also placed demands on the government to pay them – just
as it did last week with more than 7,000 workers at Yung Wah
Industrial, twin garments factories in Takhmao town that also closed in
late December.
Sing Mon, a member of a strike committee at the Ministry of Social Affairs, however, said the closures could not be compared.
“How can we solve this like Yung Wah?” he said, referring to the
government’s $6.5 million payout. “Yung Wah’s owner guaranteed to pay
the government back later. In the case of Kingsland, the owner escaped.”
According to the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia, Yung
Wah’s owners went bankrupt, and it was unlikely its assets would fetch
more than about $1 million.
Separately, the opposition parties jumped into the debate over worker
compensation yesterday, proposing a $150 per month national minimum
wage and a $250 minimum wage for civil servants, just a day after unions
in the garment sector failed to secure a $100 minimum wage during talks
with factories.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY MEAS SOKCHEA
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