Arbitration Council Reinstates Hotel Strikers

The Cambodia Daily
13 August 2004

The Arbitration Council issued a decision on Thursday [12 August 2004], ordering the Grand Hotel d'Angkor to reinstate most of the 209 union workers it fired in April.

The Council ruled that 169 workers--those who turned up at the Siem Reap hotel each day after they were fired and signed a log book to record they showed up for work--were allowed to return to their jobs.

"For the workers who registered [their names], the employers should immediately reinstate them and the employers should pay their salary and other interests to the workers from the day they registered," the Council said in a statement of its decision.

The Council ordered the hotel to pay salaries, ranging from US$30 to US$65 per month, to all of the fired workers for the duration of their unemployment, from April 11 to August 12, inclusive.

However, the workers who failed to register the hotel log book cannot return to their jobs, the statement said.

It added that the hotel had eight days to appeal the Council's decision to Siem Reap Provincial Court.

Grand Hotel d'Angkor manager Riaz Mahmood said Thursday he had not received the Council;s decision and declined further comment.

The hotel fired 209 striking union workers on April 17, accusing them of ignoring a Siem Reap court's ruling that ordered them to return to work.

Pat Sambo, the president of the Grand Hotel d'Angkor union, said he was unhappy with the decision, as it did not allow the remaining workers to return.

Some 15 of those workers not allowed to return had signed the log book, he said, while eight others were busy cultivating rice.

"I think the Arbitration Council has made a mistake because the 15 workers have registered their names so they would be allowed to go back to work," Sambo said.

He added that he was skeptical the hotel would follow the Council's decision.

"I don't think that the Grand Hotel d'Angkor will reinstate the workers because they never respect the labour law," he said.

The Council's decisions are not legally binding. In June, the Raffles Hotel Le Royal in Phnom Penh successfully opposed the Council's order to reinstate 97 workers. [AFW-IUF note: the Raffles Hotel Le Royal made no attempt to oppose the Council's award--the management simply refused to accept the order and refused to comply with Council decisions, most notably General Manager Stephan Gnaegi's refusal to appear before the Council on 19 May 2004; a breach of Cambodian law.]

Arbitration Council Judge An Nan also expressed dissatisfaction with the decision.

He said the hotel used police and security guards to prevent workers from signing the log book.

"I wanted the Arbitration Council to reinstate all the workers," he said, but the other two judges on the Council declined.