The Rights Group has demanded that Cambodia's government should make proposed law aimed at regulating the country’s labor movement public. Requests from civil society to review the law on trade unions have so far been denied, said the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR). The group also said that recent reports of new unions being refused registration by the authorities or having their registrations delayed constituted “a direct attack on the right to freedom of association.”
Since December last year, CCHR is said to have documented six cases in which the authorities have denied or delayed new union registration, or threatened license revocation. Cambodian laws at present have provisions of protecting the right to freedom of association and allowing workers the right to strike and engage in non-violent demonstrations.
The first draft of the Law on Trade Unions was introduced by Hun Sen’s administration in 2011, but was called off after concerns that it would make unions vulnerable to de-registration, presented barriers to prospective union leaders, and allotted too much power to the government, among other factors. But CCHR said that the law was later submitted for review by the council of ministers in late 2013 and the government may pass it by the end of 2014.
Since an earlier round of minimum wage protests were violently suppressed in January, the government has refused to restart negotiations between workers and employers over a higher minimum wage, which is currently at $100 per month. The group of eight unions and at least eight labour associations had announced another round of stay-at-home strikes following the Khmer New Year. About 600 workers held an unrelated protest outside the E-Z International Garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district on Thursday morning demanding that management meets their 17 demands. The demands include a 6 dollars monthly health stipend, a daily 1 dollar meal allowance, a 10 dollars monthly transportation stipend and the construction of additional toilets in the factory.
