Cambodian textile workers have been on strike since before Christmas demanding a new minimum wage of $160 a month. Currently they get about $80. However as the New Year opened some workers began to drift back to work as they needed the cash. This intensified the struggle of the more militant workers who took to the streets to prevent the factories being reopened. The army stepped in and on January 2 stormed a factory occupied by striking workers. The Government has also deployed the élite commando Unit 911 against the strikers. Undeterred the next day the workers confronted the police with stones, sticks and Molotov cocktails and the police claim that 9 of their officers were injured. This was their excuse for opening fire on the workers killing at least 4 (the standard international media says 3) and injuring dozens of others. A military police spokesman called Kheng Tito justified the action in the following terms:

"If we allowed them to continue to strike it would become anarchy."

In other words the workers were posing a threat to the Cambodian state. And in this situation the Cambodian state has never been slow to kill striking textile workers. Two were shot dead in February 2012, whilst three more were shot dead outside a Puma factory in May 2013 whilst a woman textile worker was shot dead in November 2013 (1)-

Cambodia in the Global Capitalist System

Textiles are Cambodia’s biggest industry by far. 650,000 are employed in the industry in over 500 factories, nearly half a million of them working for famous Western labels like Gap, Nike, Next, Uniqlo, H&M, Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger etc. It brings in 80% of Cambodia’s export earnings. A few years ago it became a destination of choice for Western brands as labour costs were one sixth that of China but repeated strikes by workers have gradually pushed up wage levels. However the Cambodian rulers are already aware of their place in the global capitalist competition. As it is the Cambodian garment industry has to import nearly all its fabrics from China. And Bangladesh textile workers after years of bitter struggle have only just been able to get their pay raised to $68 a month. On top of that Bangladesh has a bigger workforce. In this context the regime have offered to raise wages to $95 a month but not more.

Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world. Approximately 4 million people live on less than $1.25 per day, and 37% of Cambodian children under the age of 5 suffer from chronic malnutrition. Most of the population are subsistence peasants but as the Government touts for international firms to come and mine bauxite, gold, iron and gems many of these farmers are being forcibly evicted from their land in order that it can be given as concessions. More than 50% of the national budget is provided by donor assistance (mainly from China). Corruption is endemic in all this and the Cambodian People’s Party has ruled for 30 years since its leader, Hun Sen, was installed by a Vietnamese invasion which toppled the bloody regime of the Khmer Rouge under whom at least 1 million Cambodians had been murdered.

Hun Sen has set up various Special Economic Zones to give international capital a free rein to exploit at will on the basis of his own promise that Cambodian workers are docile. The workers are intent on eradicating that premise.

The Future?

However the strike movement is in danger of being derailed by other agendas in particular by the political opposition. Since July’s disputed election, the Cambodia National Rescue Party has been demonstrating every day to have the elections annulled. They have won the support of the 6 unions who are backing the current strikes and have promised if they succeed in overthrowing the Hun Sen regime then they will meet the workers wage demands. The Hun Sen regime has actually boosted the opposition in the eyes of the workers as the instigators of the strikes. The day after the killing of the 4 workers they police moved in Freedom Park (an area designated by the Government in 2010 for legal protest) and attacked monks, women and children with four foot long iron poles to clear the park. All demonstrations and public gatherings have now been banned and the leaders of the Cambodia National Rescue Party have been summoned to court on charges of inciting the strikers.

So “democracy” is now being touted as the solution to the Cambodian workers’ plight. To older workers in the West we have heard it all before. Every bourgeois faction out of power promises something to the workers only to forget them when it gets hold of power (after all “the national interest” comes first and workers’ living standards a long way second). However the proletariat is relatively young in both age (50% of the population of Cambodia is under 25) and experience so it is likely that they will be seduced by the democratic agenda … for the time being at least …

-- Jock

(1) See http://libcom.org/news/cambodia-garment-worker-shot-23102006