Landmark Redress for Falsely Imprisoned Worker Leader Won with Breakthrough Union Recognition for 20,000 Workers

In a breakthrough for workers’ rights and freedom of association in Cambodia, the WRC is pleased to report sweeping remedies at Wing Star Shoes (WSS), a factory employing roughly 20,000 workers, following years of rights abuses. Union leader Chea Chan, jailed for six months on baseless charges in retaliation for organizing at the ASICS and Muji supplier, has now been reinstated to his prior role where he can freely act as union leader. He received $50,000 in compensation for his wrongful imprisonment, in addition to $3,000 in back wages secured in 2024, and vitally, the union has been officially registered as an affiliate of the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions (CATU).

These historic outcomes were secured through the persistence of Chan and CATU, alongside 18 months of sustained engagement between ASICS and the WRC in collaboration with the International Committee of the Labour Lawyers Association of Japan (LLAJ). These corrective actions represent long overdue redress in a case that epitomizes the harsh retaliation faced by Cambodian workers who exercise their right to organize in factories.

The $53,000 compensation for retaliatory imprisonment and back wages equals more than 20 years of wages for a Cambodian garment worker. To the WRC’s knowledge, it is the largest compensatory settlement received by a garment worker in the Global South for violations of freedom of association. The legal registration of the union at WSS in September is the first recognition of an independent factory-level union granted by the Cambodian Ministry of Labour in 2025, a long awaited step welcomed by rights groups in the country.

In just a few weeks, more than 350 workers at WSS have joined the independent union to collectively address rights violations at the factory. Word continues to spread among the workforce of the first independent (non-employer dominated or Government-aligned) union at this long established factory. In the wake of the WSS union registration, the Ministry of Labour has granted a second registration to a CATU-affiliated union at another factory, raising hopes that the backlog of registration applications from factory-level unions may soon be cleared, restoring workers’ ability to collectively organize.

Chan’s experience not only exposed how management retaliation is used to stifle independent organizing but it is also an unfortunate illustration of the failure of brands to respond swiftly, and of their own initiative, to rights abuses in their supply chains. 

Chan was violently arrested at work just weeks after his January 2024 election as union leader. The filing of false police complaints by managers against worker leaders is a well-established tool to silence workers and further repress their rights. Even after he was freed and his conviction overturned for lack of evidence, Chan faced renewed retaliation. WSS management refused to reinstate him to his prior role as lead mechanic and, instead, confined him for a year in a factory outbuilding, isolated from other workers.

Chan’s six-month imprisonment on false accusations from WSS resulted in his serious health decline, which he has only been able to address since receiving compensation for his time in the overcrowded prison. His family lost their main income and ancestral home and incurred heavy debt to survive while his three children wondered where their father had gone. The retaliation against Chan also had a chilling impact on the factory’s already frightened workforce, convincing workers there was no safe way to better their conditions collectively.

Over the past 20 months, ASICS and Muji had multiple opportunities to require WSS to end its union busting, stop victimizing Chan, and redress its egregious retaliation. At every stage—Chan’s arrest, his lengthy imprisonment, his discriminatory segregation from other workers, and his family’s hardship—the WRC documented and informed the brands of the rights abuses their supplier was committing and the steps needed to correct them.

Yet at each step, for more than a year and a half, ASICS and Muji declined to require their supplier to take these remedial actions and respect the rights of their supply chain workers. These rights abuses could have been prevented. Further retaliation compounded the existing abuses when the brands failed to act. The eventual redress could and should have come from the brands much sooner.

Chan and CATU have shown extraordinary courage by defending workers’ basic rights in the face of harsh retaliation from one of Cambodia’s most powerful manufacturers. Their success in upholding labor rights illustrates that, even amid shrinking civic space, Cambodian workers and their unions can secure meaningful remedy and accountability from factory employers, through mutual solidarity and support from international labor rights advocates.

The WRC acknowledges ASICS’s constructive—if extremely belated—role in bringing remedy for the violations committed by its supplier. ASICS must now maintain oversight of WSS to prevent renewed repression of workers’ freedom of association. Muji, which did not engage directly in the resolution of this case, must also do better to fulfill its human rights due diligence responsibilities to workers in its supply chain.

The WRC will continue to monitor conditions at Wing Star Shoes and respond swiftly if further violations occur.