A CPP labor leader said the death of outspoken union president Chea Vichea should speed up the formation of a massive unified confederation of unions within the year.
Chuon Momthol, a CPP member who has lobbied the country’s biggest unions to join a confederation under his presidency, said Tuesday he hoped Chea Vichea’s Free Trade Union would soon join his umbrella group.
Chea Vichea held out on entering the confederation out of fear it would pacify an aggressive labor movement he helped found. He was shot in an assassination-style killing Thursday morning.
The Free Trade Union is one of three prominent groups that has balked at joining the confederation, while at least eight have pledged support, Chuon Momthol said. The confederation already has the blessing of CPP Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng.
While denouncing Chea Vichea’s killing, Chuon Momthol said that the death “has given us a positive impact because these unions will come together.”
He advertised the Cambodian Confederation of Trade Unions as an apolitical group intended to unite disparate voices in the labor movement. Discussions with union leaders will resume at a meeting Thursday, he said, and a deal may be accomplished within the next five months.
“I’m prepared to tell [the union heads] that it’s time for us to join together, regardless of political belief,” Chuon Momthol said. “One chopstick can be broken. A bunch of chopsticks cannot be broken,” he said.
A successor to head Chea Vichea’s union has not yet been named, but Free Trade Union
secretary-general Sum San Neang said it still opposed the confederation. “Chuon Momthol doesn’t use the unions to help workers, but to help the CPP,” he said.
Morm Nhim, president of the National Independent Federation of Textile Unions of Kampuchea, also said her union would remain independent.
Chuon Momthol already represents several thousand factory workers in his Cambodian Union Federation. He said about 2,500 of those workers were striking Tuesday at eight factories where managers said they would dock the wages of staff who took time off to attend Chea Vichea’s funeral over the weekend.
