Garments and textiles

The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia wants to build a special school to improve Cambodian workers’ skills and make the country more competitive, but labor leaders say if the school is not provided for free, it won’t work. ...

Garment industry, Cambodia’s largest foreign currency earner, has seen a 9% rise in exports in the first six months of 2015, according to the Chinese State’s News Agency-Xinhua. ...

A majority of members of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia, which represents the country’s more than 500 exporting garment factories, have voted against any raise to their workers’ minimum wage next year. ...

A visiting delegation from the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, which handles tens of billions of dollars in regional investment, says it raised concerns about the low threshold for forming unions in a pending new law during meetings with government officials Monday. ...

Some 300 garment workers were due to end their strike today following three days of protest and negotiations with GIN-SOVAN Fashion Cambodia Limited factory management. ...

A report released yesterday by the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia claims that the Kingdom is having difficulties competing against its neighbours due to low productivity, increasing wages and labour strife. ...

In the inaugural issue of its bulletin on Cambodia’s $5.8-billion garment industry, the International Labor Organization said Thursday that business remained strong on the back of rising exports despite a 28-percent hike to the sector’s minimum wage in January. ...

More than 60 garment workers fainted yesterday afternoon after a bout of food poisoning, police have said. ...

The independent dispute resolution body established to help workers and employers in Cambodia resolve labor disputes had its busiest year ever in 2014. ...

The recently established National Silk Board is looking to tighten regulations and boost investor confidence in Cambodia’s silk industry, as well as create a policy for silk promotion in the future. ...

Workers at A & J Carter (Cambodia) Limited in Kampong Speu province’s Samrong Tong district protested outside the factory yesterday, continuing a strike that began five days ago. ...

The government has released a schedule for minimum wage discussions with unions and factories this year, as workers continue to demand $177 per month to keep up with the rising cost of living. More talks are scheduled from July through January. ...

Two weeks of strikes by Cambodian garment workers of a Phnom Penh factory could have “negatively impacted” the country’s industry, The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) has said.  Figures published last week by GMAC showed the number of strikes at Cambodia’s garment factories during ...

ASEAN is poised to become Asia’s next low-cost manufacturing powerhouse as wages in China’s Pearl River Delta (PRD) factory belt continue to creep up, said an economist. ...

More than 100 workers at a Phnom Penh garment printing factory protested yesterday after they returned from the Khmer New Year holiday to find their workplace shuttered. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen reiterated government policy to increase wage to $160 a month for factory workers and at least $250 a month for civil servants by 2018. His comment was made during a meeting yesterday with around 3,000 factory workers at the Koh Pich ...

Cambodian Labor Minister Ith Samheng said on Sunday that the country’s garment and footwear industries, the kingdom’s largest foreign currency earner, are comprised of 1,087 factories with 700,000 direct jobs. ...

Ministry of Labour officials have agreed to allow the selling off of equipment inside a Phnom Penh garment factory, abandoned by its owner at the end of January, to pay money owed to workers, union officials said Tuesday. ...

UK retailer Marks & Spencer and the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia (GMAC) have disputed the details of a report alleging labour rights abuses are still rife in the country’s garment factories, with both claiming they are committed to providing and supporting safe working conditions. ...

On a dusty highway on the edge of this port city, thousands of young women and a few hundred young men block evening traffic as they stream out of the New Star Shoes factory. ...

Cambodia has rejected a U.S.- based Human Rights Watch’s “labor abuse” report, saying the report is groundless, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Labor late on Friday. ...

Human Rights Watch says lax labor laws in Cambodia are allowing garment factories, including many suppliers for Western brands, to take advantage of vulnerable workers. In a report released Thursday, the New York-based rights group documented a “persistent pattern of labor rights violations,” including forced overtime, ...

Human Rights Watch says it has uncovered alleged abuses at Cambodian garment factories that supply Marks & Spencer, Gap, H&M, Adidas and Armani. The pressure group found evidence of discrimination and anti-union practices, it says. ...

More than 400 former employees of the abandoned DF Fashion Apparel (Cambodia) in Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district will each receive between $500 and $600 in back pay owed to them today. ...