Protesters beaten as Cambodia passes new union law

By Lauren Crothers

PHNOM PENH

Lawmakers in Cambodia passed the country’s first trade union law Monday evening, several hours after two unionists protesting the legislation were reported to have been beaten by police.

Rights group Licadho said the two protesters, from the Collective Union of Movement of Workers, were among a group of about 50 people prevented by about 100 police officers from marching to the National Assembly on Monday morning.

“As they peacefully assembled in front of the roadblock, the group was suddenly and violently dispersed by about 30 para-police,” said Licadho, adding that “police standing nearby did nothing to stop the violence”.

Cambodian People’s Party spokesman Sok Eysan told Anadolu Agency on Monday evening that the law had passed with 68 votes from the CPP, which holds the majority of seats on the National Assembly.

Opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party spokesman Yim Sovann told Anadolu Agency that 39 votes against were cast by lawmakers from his party.

“We didn’t [vote for it] because it was in the interests of the employers, rather than the workers,” Sovann said.

“The main issue is that it is very difficult for workers to register as a union.”

He said the CNRP condemned the beating of the unionists.

“Beating the workers is illegal. We do not support the violence. We would like the authorities, especially the government, to respect the rights of the workers," he said.

"They were demonstrating because they don’t want the National Assembly to pass the law, because they were not satisfied with it. Why not allow them to demonstrate peacefully? Why beat them?”

Labour Ministry spokesman Heng Suor, Moeun Tola, executive director of the Centre for Alliance of Labour and Human Rights, could not be reached for comment.

Ath Thorn, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union, could also not be reached after the legislation passed, but had told Anadolu Agency earlier in the day that the union had sent a list of proposals to lawmakers, but had only seen two revisions in the latest draft of the law, compared to an earlier version from late 2014.

In a letter sent to Labour Minister Ith Sam Heng on March 10, the International Labour Organization’s regional director, Maurizio Bussi, outlined a number of concerns with a draft of the law, including areas where “vague language” had the potential to limit certain rights.

Similarly, the United Nation's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Cambodia (OHCHR) also provided a step-by-step legal analysis of the draft law, which found that “transparency was not consistently guaranteed throughout” by the Labour Ministry during the drafting process.

OHCHR said the contents should have been accessible to the public, and said its own analysis came late because it was excluded from the consultation process until the proposal had already reached parliament.

It recommended that the law not be passed until a full and thorough public consultative process had been carried out.