Garments and textiles

Activists have decried a decision by the Ministry of Labour to disregard union pleas for a hike in the minimum wage for some of the country’s 500,000 garment workers, one warning that it could lead to civil unrest. The unions’ wage proposal received only seven ...

The deadline for submitting applications for foreign employee quotas is fast approaching. Employers must apply for the foreign labor quota before the end of November 2014 in order to employ foreigners in 2015. The Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training has recently issued a number ...

A group of union leaders, factory owners and government representatives set up to negotiate a recommendation for a new minimum wage in the garment sector is due to meet Wednesday for a vote on a final figure, according to those involved in the talks. ...

Thousands of employees at Grand Twins International, Cambodia’s only publicly listed garment factory, will be back at the assembly line today after nearly two weeks on strike, accepting a court order to return to work. Workers will follow the order the Phnom Penh Municipal Court issued ...

The tripartite working group set up to negotiate and advise the Ministry of Labour’s Labour Advisory Committee (LAC) on next year’s minimum wage in Cambodia’s garment sector has stopped meeting after reaching a stalemate. Made up of 27 members – nine each from employers, the government ...

The Kampong Cham Provincial Court yesterday ordered that five workers who were arrested during a violent protest at Juhui Footwear on Saturday be held in prison while charges against them are investigated. Two of them, Khun Sokhom and Mon Sarem, officials from the Coalition of Cambodian ...

A former chief security guard at the Roo Hsing Garment Co factory was sentenced yesterday to four years in prison for conspiring with two thieves to steal more than 1,000 items of clothing from the factory in April. ...

Thousands of workers from the Grand Twins International garment factory—one of two companies listed on the Cambodia Stock Exchange (CSX)—blocked a major highway leading out of Phnom Penh on Friday morning to protest for better working conditions and higher wages. ...

About 100 workers representing eight trade unions and labor associations rallied in front of the Ministry of Labor on Sunday demanding that the government relax registration requirements that they say are being used to stifle efforts to increase their memberships. ...

Ten striking workers were arrested in eastern Cambodia on Saturday after more than 200 protesters burned a factory gate and hurled stones at the police, leaving eight officers injured, a local police chief said. ...

Mrs. Julie Chung, deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Phnom Penh, said Thursday that US will not interfere in Cambodia’s wage negotiation for workers. ...

Cambodia’s garment exports have continued to rise but at a slower pace than earlier in the year, according to government data. ...

The third day of negotiations between members of a working group trying to reach a consensus on the minimum monthly garment wage remained stagnant yesterday, as manufacturers refused to budge from their $110 offer. ...

A new group that will advise the committee that advises the government on the minimum wage in the country’s garment sector began talking numbers Tuesday following a meeting Monday that laid out a code of conduct for the negotiations. ...

Four Cambodian garment workers were slightly injured on Tuesday after part of the floor in a garment factory collapsed into a pond built underneath, a local police chief confirmed. ...

Transparent reporting of garment factory compliance in Cambodia is continuing to help to improve conditions for workers, according to a new report. In its third online transparency report, the International Labor Organization (ILO’s) Better Factories Cambodia (BFC) programme said two of the 13 factories in the Low Compliance group had ...

About 600 employees of a Phnom Penh garment factory were to return to work today after walking out with the demand of receiving their salaries before next month’s Water Festival. Ginwin Industry (Cambodia) Co yesterday agreed to pay workers a portion of their wages ahead of ...

Four Cambodian garment workers were slightly injured on Tuesday after part of the floor in a garment factory collapsed into a pond built underneath, a local police chief confirmed. The incident occurred at 10:00 a.m. (local time) at Nishiku Enterprise in Bati district of southern Takeo ...

The Labor Ministry laid out the ground rules for unions and factories Monday at the first meeting of a new working group charged with getting the two sides to agree on a new minimum wage for garment workers, including a condition that they address each ...

While the smoke has long cleared on January’s violent garment strikes, for many of the 23 workers and unionists arrested and tried on charges widely considered to be baseless, the ordeal is far from over. Nine months after security forces used deadly violence to end strikes ...

One of the country’s largest unions on Sunday came out in favor of a new minimum wage for garment workers far lower than what many of its counterparts have been agitating for over the past several months, bolstering prospects for a compromise with factories. ...

Cambodian authorities have held two rounds of talks with garment factory owners and unions under a new mechanism to help break a deadlock over increasing the workers’ monthly minimum wage but to no avail. But Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng said that he expected the Garment ...

A study by the International Labor Organization, the U.N.’s labor body, shows most Cambodian garment workers do not eat enough nutritious food and that, as a result, many are anemic and even underweight. Now, a pilot project will feed workers at five factories a free ...

Following a meeting with parliamentarians at the National Assembly yesterday, Minister of Labour Ith Sam Heng announced the ministry would form a 27-member committee to study technical aspects of raising the minimum wage in Cambodia’s garment sector. The new committee will comprise nine representatives each from ...