The Interior Ministry on Wednesday threatened to revoke the license of the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association (CITA) if it goes ahead with a planned demonstration next week seeking higher wages for the country’s educators.
An official at the ministry said that the move to revoke the association’s license was in direct response to CITA president Rong Chhun’s involvement in nationwide garment worker strikes, and his affiliation with the opposition CNRP.
CITA, which has more than 10,000 members across the country, decided during its annual congress on Tuesday to hold a nationwide weeklong demonstration, beginning Monday, calling for a $250 monthly wage for the country’s poorly paid schoolteachers.
The association sent a letter to the government the same day laying out its plans.
“We will revoke the license if he [Mr. Chhun] leads a demonstration as he mentioned in his letter,” said Duch Son, chief of the general department of administration at the Ministry of Interior.
Mr. Son said that Interior Minister Sar Kheng approved the measure to revoke the license following receipt of CITA’s letter, which says that teachers will rally in both Phnom Penh and provincial capitals for higher salaries “to improve their living standards and to highlight the quality of the education sector.”
Mr. Chhun said Wednesday that the government’s threat to shut down his association was an attempt to scare teachers, who make as little as $100 a month, from joining CITA’s demonstration.
“I think this threat is only meant to intimidate teachers into not joining the protest to demand a raise to the minimum wage,” he said.
“My association was registered legally with the Ministry of Interior, so if they remove my association they will be taking steps that are against the law,” he added.
According to a letter from the government to Mr. Chhun dated December 27, the labor leader’s political activism is in breach of CITA’s statute, submitted to the Ministry of Interior in 2001, which says the association would be politically neutral.
The Interior Ministry released another letter last week also saying that the government does not recognize Mr. Chhun as a union leader, because the Cambodian Confederation of Unions, an umbrella organization that he leads, is not registered with the government.
Mr. Son said he had personally requested that the government punish Mr. Chhun for his activism in support of the opposition party.
“I made a request to the minister [Mr. Kheng] to ask for him to make a decision to revoke the association’s license because Mr. Rong Chhun uses the organization’s name to serve his political activity,” Mr. Son said.
Mr. Chhun was a central figure in the creation of the country’s non-government aligned labor movement in the 1990s and has remained active in the opposition movement against Prime Minister Hun Sen’s CPP government.
He has also been one of six union leaders organizing ongoing demonstrations in the garment sector calling for a minimum monthly wage of $160.
Despite government warnings to stop all demonstrations by garment strikers today, Mr. Chhun and his colleagues have pledged to continue to support workers as they take their demands to the street to secure a better wage.
Sok Sam Oeun, a prominent lawyer and chairman of the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, said that Mr. Chhun’s political activity, if conducted in a personal capacity, is not relevant to his work with CITA.
“Only if what he did is on behalf of the association can the ministry cancel the license of this organization,” Mr. Sam Oeun said.
“If he violates or abuses the statute of his association, that means the government [should] only ask the association to take action. Maybe the association can remove him [Mr. Chhun] or warn him,” he added.
Dave Welsh, the country representative for the Solidarity Center, a U.S.-based labor advocacy group, said that the government, which has tolerated widespread demonstrations in recent weeks, was particularly sensitive to Mr. Chhun’s efforts to unionize teachers.
“[Mr. Chhun] mostly represents those workers which the government is determined to deny fundamental labor rights to, such as teachers and civil servants,” Mr. Welsh said, noting that the government has remained adamantly opposed to a teachers’ union despite adopting laws protecting freedom of association.
“The government has to decide if it’s worth it from a public relations perspective, in terms of blowback that will inevitably arise, if they take action and take away licenses or arrest union leaders,” he added.
