Kong Hong Garment factory employees leaving work Tuesday were greeted by rain and images of bloody garment workers maimed in the March 1997 grenade attack on a Sam Rainsy-led rally.
The pictures, part of a pro-Sam Rainsy Party pamphlet, are one trade union’s strategy to sway valuable workers’ votes away from the CPP. Leaders of the Free Trade Union of the Kingdom of Cambodia have visited 180 factories in and around Phnom Penh over the past month, urging voters registered in the capital to stay and vote en masse for the Sam Rainsy Party, said Free Trade Union President Chea Vichea.
“We want to remind workers that if they vote for the CPP, they will get violence,” Chea Vichea said. “We want all workers registered in Phnom Penh to vote. And all the rest to carry their ideas home to the provinces.”
Voting members of Cambodia’s garment industry, run by more than 200,000 workers, could carry a swing vote Sunday if their ballots are concentrated in one area, said Thach Sem, a CPP official and adviser to Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng.
“If workers [collectively] support any party, that party will get more support and might win the election,” Thach Sem said. “We will not say which party the workers support. We are helping workers get money to go home to the provinces for the election.”
Workers are allowed between one and three days to return to their respective provinces to cast ballots, said National Election Committee spokesman Leng Sochea. Workers registered in remote provinces should be released from work Friday, while laborers in nearby provinces or Phnom Penh will be released one or two days later, he said.
It is not known how many garment workers are registered voters, but registration numbers swelled in April throughout the three days workers were released to go home and register, indicating that most workers are signed up to vote, Leng Sochea said.
The Sam Rainsy Party likely will carry the workers’ vote because of his personal involvement in workers’ strikes, said Cambodian Labor Organization lawyer An Nan.
Workers rights and other labor issues have dominated Sam Rainsy’s platform since 1997, when the leader of the then-Khmer Nation Party marched with workers through Phnom Penh’s streets demanding higher wages and fair working conditions. “When there’s a demonstration and workers’ demands are not met, Sam Rainsy’s presence helps to persuade factories to cooperate,” An Nan said.
The president of the CPP-affiliated Cambodian Union Federation, Choun Momthol, who has visited factories carrying his party’s platform, said workers will vote for the CPP because it promises higher wages and improved working conditions.
Those promises went unheard at two public debates organized by the American Center for International Labor Solidarity earlier this month. CPP candidates declined to join Funcinpec and Sam Rainsy Party candidates on stage to respond to questions posed by thousands of union members.
You Ay, CPP secretary of state for Women’s Affairs, said CPP officials generally do not participate in debates with unclear agendas for fear that they could be hurt by ill-prepared answers.
While unions sympathetic to the CPP and the Sam Rainsy Party have used their power to sway voters inside and outside of factories, Funcinpec has relied on its actions to sway voters, said Funcinpec candidate and Minister of Women’s Affairs Mu Sochua. “We don’t hold any union hostage,” Mu Sochua said. “We want to keep Funcinpec politics away from union politics.”
She noted that meetings held with the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia demanding fair pay for maternity leave and appropriate working conditions speak louder for the party than union pressure.
Of the dozens of Kong Hong workers gripping pro-Sam Rainsy Party pamphlets on Tuesday, none would say which party he or she would support.
