"Only “Instant Noodle” Unions Survive", 21 November 2022

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Cambodia’s government under longtime Prime Minister Hun Sen openly repressed the labor movement, along with the political opposition, the media, and other civil society activism. Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, the government intensified its crackdown on independent unions, using public health and other arguments as ostensible justifications. Many employers adopted retrenchment measures, making mass layoffs for jobs that no longer existed, which facilitated the government clampdown on independent unions.

This report is primarily based on Human Rights Watch interviews between March and June 2022 with 32 independent union leaders and activist members in Cambodia’s garment and tourism sector, and exchanges with international and local labor rights advocates, and outreach to companies.

Human Rights Watch found widespread violations of workers’ rights to register, form, and join independent unions at garment factories, a casino, and other places of business. We documented five cases of unfair dismissals and mass layoffs targeting union leaders and activist members, which add to Cambodia’s longstanding and pervasive problems of union-busting...

In four documented cases, Human Rights Watch found that authorities and employers used or threatened resort to Cambodia’s politicized criminal justice system to silence union leaders and activist members by arbitrarily arresting, detaining, and prosecuting them, or threatening to do so if union actions did not stop. They cited bogus charges such as “incitement to commit a felony” and unsubstantiated violations of Cambodia’s problematic Law on Preventive Measures Against the Spread of COVID-19 and other Severe and Dangerous Contagious Diseases (“Covid-19 Law”), which imposes disproportionately high penalties on persons deemed to violate Covid-19 measures.

Cambodia’s garment, footwear, and travel goods as well as tourism and entertainment sectors were hit hard by the pandemic. Reduced demand for garments due to the closure of fashion stores because of lockdowns around the world and the economic impact of the pandemic resulted in international brands that sourced their products from Cambodian factories and elsewhere, stop, reduce, or suspend their orders. Hotel brands in Cambodia’s tourism and entertainment sector, which resorted to mass layoffs during the pandemic, did not effectively respond to freedom of association and other labor rights violations by their affiliates.

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