Global brewery giant Carlsberg is using the courts to bully and intimidate Cambodian Food and Service Workers Federation (CFSWF), the union representing workers at its Cambodian joint venture Cambrew.
Women fired after strike
Cambrew employs beer promotion women to market and serve Angkor beer at restaurants, where they compete with promoters from other breweries working in the same restaurants.
This did not prevent Cambrew from unilaterally replacing existing employment contracts in early 2016 which extended working hours (exposing the women to even greater risk) and abolished training and maternity leave. Workers have been put on short-term contracts to evade the legal obligation to offer permanent contracts after two years of service.
Determined to defend their rights, the women went on strike, but when an arbitration tribunal ordered a return to work pending a resolution of the dispute, 12 of the women were terminated.
