Chea Vichea SweatFree Sustainer Program

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June 2010-- The votes are in, and Cambodian labor rights leader Chea Vichea is now the namesake of SweatFree Communities’ newest program, the Chea Vichea SweatFree Sustainer program.  He is our official Worker Rights Hero.

Chea Vichea was founder and president of Cambodia’s largest union representing garment workers, the Free Trade Union of Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia (FTUWCK). He was a popular and outspoken leader for garment workers’ rights.  Despite beatings and constant death threats, he fought for  a living  wage, the end of forced overtime, better working conditions, and  helped secure Cambodia’s first ever minimum wage for garment workers.  A survivor of a Khmer Rouge labor camp, Vichea was known to be a tireless activist who lived where he worked, often slept on a map in the union office, and didn’t collect a salary.

An effective organizer and instigator of wildcat strikes who could call 50,000 workers into the streets on short notice, Vichea gained an international reputation in the labor movement but also created enemies in the garment industry, which today accounts for more than 90% of Cambodia’s export earnings.  Tragically, Vichea was assassinated with three bullets while reading the paper at a newsstand in broad daylight in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.  That was January 22, 2004.  Vichea was only 36 years old.

There has never been much doubt that Vichea’s murder was a political killing.  However, those responsible for the crime have never been held accountable.  Two men, since released, spent close to five years in prison falsely convicted of killing Vichea in a judicial process widely condemned for political interference, intimidation of witnesses, a forced confession, and other violations of international legal standards.

On the day of Vichea’s funeral more than 20,000 garment workers and other people turned out to mourn and pay their respects to Vichea and the struggle he embodied.  Today, we seek  to honor Vichea’s legacy by making him the namesake of a program that will help us sustain our struggle for justice for garment workers in Cambodia and elsewhere.  Over the coming months and years we will seek to learn about Vichea’s life and struggle, share inspiring stories of victories of organized garment workers, and conduct our own work with the determination and fearlessness that does justice to Vichea’s name and legacy.  We hope you will join us by becoming a Chea Vichea Sweatfree Sustainer today.