“Landmark Redress for Falsely Imprisoned Worker Leader Won with Breakthrough Union Recognition for 20,000 Workers”, 6 November 2025

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). …

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. …

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.

…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…

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.