Published by: Miles

"A fine of US$10 for one minute late," a seemingly absurd rule actually appeared in a Chinese-funded garment factory in Cambodia.

On October 2, about a thousand workers collectively refused to enter the factory area, and a massive strike broke out to protest a series of harsh regulations by the new management. According to Cambodia media reports, the core demands of the protest were not complicated, the restoration of lunch subsidies, the abolition of the unreasonable system of "a one-minute late fine of $10", the observance of the rules for deductions determined by the previous meeting more than 30 minutes late, the stop of unreasonable increases in output indicators and cuts in incentives, and allowing workers to carry drugs and drinking water into the factory.

These seemingly fragmented demands are reflected in the labor conflict between Chinese employers and Cambodian workers.

For Cambodian workers with a monthly salary of just over $200, $10 is almost one-fifth of their income, a week's meal.

In some factories in China, the fine system may still be seen as a tool to restrict efficiency, but in Cambodia, the reality of traffic inconvenience and dependence on the truck to leave the job is almost inevitable.

For workers, this is not just a wage issue, but a violation of dignity. As a result, the cancellation of lunch subsidies and restrictions on drinking water and medicine became the reasons for their collective outbreak, and the fine system became the spark that ignited the entire conflict.

However, as of now, the Chinese-funded factory has not issued any statements or comments.

The strike was not an isolated event, but a typical cultural and institutional friction in transnational labor relations. With the expansion of Chinese capital in Cambodia, a large number of garment factories, shoe factories, electronics factories landed, bringing money, equipment and a "Chinese" management model.

This model emphasizes discipline, efficiency, and result-oriented, putting production goals first. However, the demands of Cambodia workers are a different logic: abide by labor laws, ensure basic living standards, and maintain a decent working environment. When the two logics meet, conflicts are inevitable.

Cambodia¡¯s labor laws clearly regulate working hours, minimum wages, subsidies and penalties, emphasizing that workers must not be arbitrarily deprived of their fundamental interests, while workers have experienced several strikes over the past decade, and their organizational capabilities and awareness of collective action have increased.

A China investor who opened a garment factory in Cambodia pointed out,"This kind of punishment itself is illegal. It may be a new China manager who has moved a set of rigid domestic management to Cambodia, but it will not work."

He stressed that there are clear labor laws in Cambodia that foreign-funded factories must strictly abide by, ¡°especially wages and fines cannot be decided by investors themselves.

The investor also pointed out that from the perspective of foreign trade and international customers, similar practices are tantamount to "digging your own grave". "According to the formal factory inspection, including customer factory inspection, the word fine is not allowed to appear. If this kind of punishment still exists in the factory, the factory inspection will definitely fail. In other words, this illegal operation not only harms the interests of workers, but may also cause the factory to lose foreign trade orders."

If you take a wider perspective, you will find that there is a deeper logic behind this conflict. For China investors, the profits of garment factories are not high, orders in the European and American markets fluctuate, and cost pressure is huge.

In order to ensure delivery times and maintain profits, many Chinese managers can only continuously strengthen discipline and want to use systems and fines to "suppress" efficiency. They are accustomed to directly transplanting the experience of factories along the southeastern coast of China, but ignore the differences in labor structure and social culture in different countries.

Cambodian workers value not only wages, but also the feeling of being respected. They don't want to be treated like machines, let alone tolerate such regulations. Therefore, when enterprises base everything on control and punishment, the result must be a collective rebound.

It is worth noting that not all workers 'demands are a matter of money. They emphasized the restoration of lunch subsidies, which is related to the guarantee of basic quality of life; they demanded that medicines and drinking water be allowed to be carried, which is the most basic right to health and freedom of life.

If even such a small demand is rejected, workers will naturally think that management is deliberately suppressing it. In their view, the factory not only deprives them of income, but also deprives them of the most basic dignity. A strike is a forced revolt, not a reckless risk.

A Cambodian said that the punishment system of this factory is definitely unreasonable, 10 dollars a minute, which is unacceptable to Cambodians. Even many Chinese netizens favor Cambodian workers one-sided, saying that the Chinese factory model is not suitable for Cambodia.

For Chinese managers, they may not be intentionally opposed to the workers, but rather in anxiety about profit and efficiency, but the problem is that if this anxiety is always transmitted with ¡°punishment,¡± it would be like pressing the layer of contradiction on the workers.

This kind of management thinking may create superficial order in the short term, but in the long run it will only deteriorate labor-management relations and even destroy the reputation of the company. China investors must understand that in Southeast Asian countries like Cambodia, labor-management relations are not purely a relationship of superiors and subordinates, but also part of the social and legal order.

Any practice that violates the labor law and violates the dignity of workers will trigger a strong rebound. Today is the fine system, tomorrow it may be the production capacity indicator, and then there will be a crisis of confidence in the entire industry chain.

This incident reminds us that when China's capital goes overseas, it must not only have capital and technology, but also learn to understand, respect and integrate.

Only in this way can Chinese enterprises really be rooted in the local, rather than being pushed into the abyss by one strike. For the garment factory, this strike may be temporarily calmed under the intervention of the labor sector, but the deep contradictions behind it still require managers to show sincerity and wisdom to resolve.

At the time of the deadline, the workers gradually returned to work, the road traffic was restored, and the factory production order returned to normal.