Nearly 150 staff at the Royal Cambodia Phnom Penh Golf Club in Dangkao district resigned en masse on Sunday after the club sacked their manager, officials and a worker representative said Monday.
Lyly Chong, the club’s deputy director, said the company did not force the 147 employees—who had gone on strike the previous day—to resign.
“They thumbprinted [an agreement] to quit on their own,” Lyly Chong said. “We didn’t force them…but we cannot allow Seak Hong to return.”
The workers went on strike Saturday to demand the reinstatement of Seak Hong, a manager who was fired after a dispute with another more senior manager, said worker representative Kim Hour.
Seak Hong was dismissed on March 7 after a company manager, a woman known as Suckchi, criticized and pointed at him for not working, and he pointed back at her, Kim Hour said.
“Our workers support Seak Hong,” Kim Hour said.
“We wanted him to return to work. Since he hasn’t, we are all stopping work together.”
Sok Na, 24, said she had worked at the prestigious club, a favored haunt of the country’s many golf-playing government officials, for over six years and was paid $1.25 per day, but quit when Seak Hong was fired.
“The company put a lot of pressure on workers. We are reluctant to go back on the job without a leader to protect us,” she said.
As for her plans for the future, she said: “I might find a job as a garment factory worker or I might sell some stuff.”
Yan Yon, first deputy chief of Samraong Krom commune in Dangkao district, said government officials and the workers reached an agreement Sunday for the strikers to receive varying amounts of compensation depending on their length of employment. They will be paid on Wednesday.
“All the workers agreed to quit their jobs,” he said. “The company is asking some of them to return. But they won’t.”
