Despite the best efforts of a number of parties involved and the Ministry of Labor, it appears the NagaWorld union persists in pushing forward with its illegal strike action scheduled for December 18.
The strikers became unruly and began to make a loud noise to drown court officials who were reading the court verdict declaring that today’s strike was illegal and against the law.
Moreover, it threatened to turn into a demonstration rather than a protest.
A working Naga employee told the Khmer Times on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation and physical torture from the trade unionist, “That the union is correct in saying that the right to organize is not a crime. If so, what about the right to work and attempts to entice those who work and need to work of their own accord. Isn’t it a crime to threaten and intimidate workers who work peacefully? The employee asked.
Low-profile Khmer Times investigations, acting on information from currently employed and happily working employees, uncovered systematic abuse of service workers via text messages, subtle verbal threats, and abuse against hundreds of employees. NagaWorld who are happy to be back to work after months of being closed. During the extended shutdown period, employees received salary payments of between 40-50% even though they were not working at all and it seems that for a large part of the workforce their job means a lot. for them in supporting their families when employees at hotels and resorts elsewhere and around them were losing their jobs overwhelmingly due to full closures and total closures.
In a December 1 statement, the union alleged that there had been attempts to dissolve the union leadership structure in Naga and that the company intended to systematically, unreasonably and unacceptably dismiss workers during the labor crisis. COVID-19.
This is not true because more than 2,600 employees out of the 6,500 workforce remain union members. This represents around 40% of the workforce. In addition, meetings and discussions with the union and union representatives are continuing.
So there does not appear to be any discrimination or targeting of union members as the union claims. The rationalization exercise was based on voluntary departures, layoffs due to the closure of certain sections of operations and the reduction in the number of employees needed due to partial closures of their workplaces.
This exercise of employee rationalization was not confined to Cambodians alone or junior employees as alleged by irresponsible and incomprehensible union leaders, but was widespread, including management and senior staff.
In short, all have been affected by the downsizing of employees brought about solely by the pandemic and not by discrimination or victimization of employees.
NagaCorp, said that in light of the continuing global Covid-19 pandemic, the industry and the business of the company have been negatively affected.
After exploring all options, with careful consideration and in close consultation with our relevant stakeholders, we have made the very difficult decision to streamline our business.
“Due to the slowdown in tourism and the Covid-19 pandemic, a number of positions in our workforce have been made redundant and, in order to ensure the retention of the majority of our employees, we have cut positions dismissed from our workforce. in July 2021 in order to minimize costs and thus stabilize our business, and to ensure that we can afford to maintain our remaining workforce during a period when the business is not generating income but incurring expenses ”.
NagaCorp’s business has been cumulatively closed for almost a year since 2020 and 2021, with the impact of declining revenues and continued operating costs having an impact.
Given the above commercial situation, the company had to align its workforce with the current reality of its activity and therefore launched a collective dismissal procedure.
Naga said he followed the procedures set out in Cambodian labor law in establishing the dismissal order, consulting unions and union representatives and submitting notifications to MoLVT. Employees were compensated with the relevant severance pay under labor law, contractual rights and relevant rights under related internal policies in the event of collective dismissal. Compensation paid to employees who accepted the mutual separation package included ex gratia payments and damages, in addition to contractual rights, notice pay and amounts prescribed by applicable labor law in the event of collective dismissals. .
While a number of affected employees accepted the company’s offer of mutual separation, around 360 employees refused to do so on the advice of the union and these employees were subsequently dismissed under the termination provisions. collective labor law.
It appears to be these 360 employees who are resuming trouble, threatening to disrupt the scaled-down operations that continue with an illegal strike and forcing or intimidating the remaining employees to participate in these strikes. It is understood that some of the 360 employees have now started to approach the company to accept the mutual separation offer as they do not support the union’s action.
Despite NagaCorp’s legality to undertake its layoffs in accordance with the law to ensure that its business, in the future, remains viable, the union’s continued efforts to impact Naga’s business activities, which are already reduced but still provide more than 6,000 jobs are indeed worrying and not a good sign for the country’s efforts to return to economic normalcy step by step, in line with global trends and Cambodia’s own challenges.
- Keywords: illegal strike, Union NagaWorld leaders
