A Dangkao district factory is refusing to obey a Ministry of Social Affairs and Labor order to rehire a worker who was fired soon after becoming president of the factory’s union, a labor organization charged.
Thal Savon was fired July 30, just a month after she was elected union president at the 1,100-worker Wearwel Garment Factory, said the Free Trade Union of Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia, an umbrella labor union that represents several factories.
On Aug 30 the ministry found the factory had violated labor laws that guarantee the right to unionize and ordered the factory to rehire Thal Savon, according to George McLeod, international liaison officer with the union.
A factory official on Thursday confirmed that the ministry had made the finding and the order.
McLeod said the factory is refusing to rehire the worker or negotiate with the union.
The Free Trade Union is speaking with the factory’s major buyer, US-based The Gap, to pressure the factory and is weighing a strike, he said.
In Khemara, associate director of the ministry’s inspection department, said his office had not yet received a complaint from Thal Savon and could not act on the matter until it did.
Wearwel financial controller Zed Kapoor said his Indonesian-owned factory was still preparing a response to the ministry. He said Thal Savon had been fired because she refused to accept a transfer within the factory.
“She never communicated, by word of mouth or by writing, that she is a union leader,” Kapoor said. The factory has no official union, he said.
The case will test the ministry’s willingness to enforce its own orders, said an international labor expert familiar with the case. In recent months the ministry has ordered three companies to rehire fired labor leaders and been rebuffed each time, he said.
The ministry has the power to impose large fines on factories that do not obey its orders.
(Additional reporting by Kuch Naren)
