Workers at the NagaWorld Casino Hotel have been on strike for six weeks now over management’s refusal to negotiate over forced mass redundancies. More than a month ago, the Cambodian government jailed IUF affiliate LRSU’s leaders for launching the strike and charged them with “incitement,” a charge which carries a sentence of up to 5 years imprisonment. To date, more than 11,000 activists worldwide have joined the online campaign to support the release of the union’s leaders.
- Click here to add your support to the IUF/LabourStart campaign to release the jailed union leaders!
- On February 7, the IUF, ITUC, sister GUFs and allies will join an action called by Solidar Suisse in front of the Cambodian embassy in Geneva, and deliver a joint letter to the ambassador, echoing the workers’ core three demands:
- Release the eight jailed unionists and drop all charges
- Reinstate the 365 NagaWorld union leaders and members
- Negotiate in good faith with LRSU
- On January 28, LRSU held a press conference to emphasize that despite NagaWorld management’s claim that the “company has encouraged and emphasized to the staff to unionize since the company’s inception in 1995,” the company has a long history of anti-union behaviour which led to the original ILO complaint in 2009
The IUF Women’s Committee released a statement (in Spanish, English, French, German and Swedish) in which Chairperson Patricia Alonso stated, “The IUF Women’s Committee stands in solidarity with IUF Women’s Committee member Sithar and her colleagues as well as with all the NagaWorld Casino Hotel workers now on strike for more than 6 weeks. We condemn the arrest of trade union leaders which is contrary to international ILO conventions, the systematic violations of labour rights by hotel management for more than 13 years, and the violence against trade unionists and women trade unionists, especially in light of the recently adopted ILO Convention 190. We demand their immediate and unconditional release, their return to work and the opening of negotiations in good faith with LRSU.”
