Labor policy and administration

Some of the unions that have been demanding a hefty $77 raise to the current monthly minimum wage of $100 for the country’s garment workers said Thursday they were willing to go as low as a $35 increase, though others refused to budge. ...

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 ...

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 ...

Five union representatives have been summoned to appear in court later this month for questioning following a clash between workers and managers at a factory in Kompong Cham province last week that left three supervisors injured. ...

More than 1,000 garment workers gathered in Phnom Penh and marched through the city center Sunday, demanding a “decent wage” from their factories, the largest garment-sector demonstration in the capital since military police fatally suppressed a protest for higher wages in January. ...

At least six labor unions to be led by Pav Sina, president of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers, will hold public forum at the Freedom Park on October 12 to discuss minimum wage demand for footwear and garment workers. A plan to hold the ...

Cambodia’s Ministries of Labour and Tourism on Wednesday jointly launched a new regulation for protecting the occupational safety, health and labour rights of entertainment workers. “The regulation aims to improve working conditions, occupational safety and health rules of entertainment service enterprises, establishments and companies,”said a ...

Minister of Labour Ith Sam Heng yesterday postponed his ministry’s Labour Advisory Committee’s decision on Cambodia’s garment sector minimum wage from Friday until next month, leaving some optimistic and others dubious. In the original schedule, the minimum wage for 2015 was slated to be set in ...

Workers in Cambodia’s capital earning less than $120 per month are living below the poverty line, according to the Ministry of Planning’s own calculation. At a September 17 workshop on the garment industry minimum wage, International Labor Organization Cambodia national director Tun Sophorn cited Ministry of ...

Fuelled by poverty and debt, more than a quarter of Cambodian adults migrate, and, in the process, many are leaving behind their children, a new report finds. Part of a four-year research project on child labour, the Cambodian Independent Research Institute’s The Impacts of Adult Migration ...

As a new round of Cambodian wage negotiations approaches this month, major U.S. and European retailers who source from the country say they will be watching the talks carefully and want to see fair pay for workers. Representatives of the brands like Gap, Levi Strauss, and ...

Over 85 per cent of child domestic workers in Phnom Penh are injured in the course of their employment, research into child labour released yesterday revealed. The Cambodian Development Research Institute and World Vision International are jointly examining child labour practices in the Kingdom, and the ...

About 500 workers who have been on strike at a Chinese-owned footwear factory in Phnom Penh for the past two weeks protested in front of the Ministry of Labor yesterday asking for the government’s help in resolving the dispute. On September 15, more than 1,000 employees ...

A new study indicated that 43. 2 percent of Cambodian garment workers suffered from anemia and 15. 7 percent of workers are underweight, the International Labor Organization (ILO) said Monday. The study also found that garment workers spent approximately 1. 3 U.S. dollars per day on ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) announced last week a $30 million loan aimed at overhauling Cambodia’s technical and vocational education system (TVET). According to a September 26 statement issued by the ADB, the new funding will go towards launching a “competency-based” assessment and certification process, and ...

About 2,000 workers from the Chinese-owned Juhui Footwear factory in Kompong Cham province began a fresh round of protests on Friday and Saturday over claims that the factory is refusing to rehire unionists who were fired during a strike earlier this month, a provincial official ...

Negotiations held on Friday between garment factory owners, union leaders and government officials failed to set a new industry minimum wage for next year, but a final decision will be reached by October 10, according to Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng. The tripartite Labor Advisory Council ...

About 1,000 workers protested outside the Chinese-owned Komchay Mear Trading factory in Prey Veng province on Saturday morning after managers refused to give them a government-mandated salary advance for the Pchum Ben holiday, officials and unionists said on Sunday. The protest was short-lived, however, ending Saturday ...

Ath Thorn, the head of the country’s largest independent union, was placed yesterday under judicial supervision by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court a day after he joined demonstrations calling for a $177 monthly minimum wage for garment workers. Mr. Thorn, president of the Coalition of Cambodian ...

More than 5,000 employees of the Juhui Footwear Factory in Kompong Cham province who were fired on Tuesday after joining strikes to demand bonus pay and better benefits Wednesday rejected their severance packages and vowed to continue protesting. “We reject the full severance pay because we ...

About 1,000 workers from a Phnom Penh footwear factory got an early start on Tuesday on a cross-union campaign for a $177 minimum wage, set to start today, protesting in front of their factory over internal workplace grievances. ...

Some 3,000 workers protested in front of a garment factory in Prey Veng province Monday, calling for larger bonuses and better working conditions, according to unionists and factory representatives. Employees of the Chinese-owned Komchay Mear Trading factory, which produces clothing for U.S. brand Gap, have been ...

More than 100 workers who were fired by a Taiwanese-owned garment factory this week for striking over demands for further benefits will meet with union leaders “as soon as possible” to discuss potentially launching protests, a union representative said Tuesday. The workers were fired by the ...

In a mass firing the scale of which has not been seen since January, Phnom Penh’s Xin Fang garment factory yesterday terminated 106 employees for protesting in front of the factory. Management at the Por Sen Chey district factory on Thursday already sacked nearly 30 striking ...