Labor policy and administration

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

Cambodia had dispatched some 11, 529 workers to five countries in the first six months of 2015, according to a report from the Ministry of Labor on Thursday.​ ...

After enduring hours lost in turbulent waters, seven men were rescued yesterday after being flung from their fishing boat as it overturned in an early morning storm off Sihanoukville, officials said. ...

Nearly 100 Vietnamese laborers were detained for deportation Tuesday after they were found to be working in the country illegally during a sweep of construction sites on Phnom Penh’s Koh Pich island as part of the Interior Ministry’s seemingly arbitrary enforcement of the immigration law. ...

A group of nine trade unions representing some of the country’s 700,000 garment workers agreed on Monday to push for a $177 monthly minimum wage for the sector during fast-approaching negotiations, matching the figure they unsuccessfully lobbied for last year. ...

Three Chinese nationals were jailed by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday for attempting to smuggle four teenage Cambodian girls to China, while the sentences of two Cambodians involved in the trafficking operation were reduced to time served. ...

The Moldovan manager of an Italian pizzeria and wine shop in Phnom Penh was on Monday charged with the “unlawful removal” of a 19-year-old girl from her home country whom she allegedly forced to work without pay and subjected to sexual exploitation, according to officials ...

Three Cambodian women were repatriated this weekend after being duped by brokers and sent to into inhumane circumstances abroad, including forced marriage and unpaid labour, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ...

A long-expected crackdown on foreign nationals lacking valid visas and work permits has arrived in the coastal region with a jolt that includes late-night raids on guesthouses, followed by arrests of those found overstaying their visas. ...

Ministry of Labour officials said this week that a controversial draft trade union law is “90 per cent” complete and they are now waiting for inter-ministerial review of the language before they submit it for approval. ...

More than 200 Cambodian fishermen trapped in Indonesia were scheduled to be returned home Thursday morning on a charter Boeing 737 airliner following the intervention of Indonesia’s Fisheries Ministry and Cambodian diplomats in Jakarta. ...

The labor minister said Tuesday there were so few underage workers in the garment industry that “we can count them on our fingers,” but a unionist and an NGO countered that child labor was still rife in the country’s smaller garment factories. ...

Employees of Cintri, the city’s sole garbage collection agency, are feeling the effects of their job as they go about keeping the capital clean.  ...

Cambodia’s garment workers will renew their campaign for a monthly wage of $177 next month, when talks start for a new minimum wage, labor leaders said yesterday.  ...

Three members of the Free Trade Union on Thursday filed complaints against members of a rival union for allegedly beating them with bamboo sticks and banana tree branches during a clash outside Phnom Penh’s SH International garment factory on Wednesday morning. ...

With less than three weeks left until the deadline, over 300,000 Cambodian migrants registered in Thailand have not completed the verification process necessary to receive work visas, raising the possibility of a repeat of last year’s mass exodus. According to figures from the Thai Labour Ministry ...

Three members of the Free Trade Union were hospitalized after being beaten by members of a rival union during a protest Wednesday morning at the SH International garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district, union and police officials said. ...

Nine former employees of Beehive radio station protested in Phnom Penh on Wednesday to demand that owner Mam Sonando respect an Arbitration Council ruling that he pay them severance after firing them earlier this year. ...

Negotiations for next year’s minimum wage in Cambodia’s garment and footwear sector are already gearing up, as union leaders prepare to meet this month to discuss what wage they will demand. During the week of June 21, union heads will hold a preliminary consensus-building meeting, said ...

A weekslong strike by more than 2,000 workers from a Phnom Penh factory that supplies global fashion brand H&M ended Wednesday after unions scaled down their original demands and backed down over a condition that workers receive their full salaries for the strike period, representatives ...

Seventeen Vietnamese construction workers were arrested and the passports of 142 Chinese construction workers confiscated when immigration officers raided a building site in Phnom Penh on Tuesday afternoon. ...

Police in Phnom Penh were called up Friday night to order a Chinese-owned garment factory to release a group of employees it had locked inside in a failed attempt to make them work late into the night, officials said Sunday. ...

About 50 striking garment workers representing more than 2,000 employees from M&V International Garment Factory yesterday gathered outside Phnom Penh Municipal Court where they submitted a letter demanding a court order prohibiting their industrial action be scrapped. ...

About 20 representatives for more than 2,000 striking workers—accused by the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia of damaging the industry’s reputation—marched to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday asking it to revoke an injunction ordering them back to work. ...