Labor policy and administration

About 200 garment workers protested outside the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday after 20 colleagues were turned away when trying to enter the Smart Shirts factory earlier the same morning, union leaders said. ...

The government was yesterday accused of dragging its feet after claiming it needed more time to ratify the International Labour Organization’s convention on protecting domestic worker rights. ...

Workers striking at Phnom Penh’s Quantum Clothing factory have filed a complaint against their managers for allegedly attacking two workers during a protest Wednesday outside the factory, according to a union representative and police official. ...

More than 100 workers at a Kandal province footwear factory fainted on Monday, according to a report on the National Police website. ...

A day after opposition leader Sam Rainsy publicly took up their cause, a young Cham Muslim woman and girl were repatriated Tuesday after being trafficked into the Malaysian sex trade and were greeted by Foreign Affairs Minister Hor Namhong. ...

Businesses with supply chains and operations in Burma, Bangladesh and Cambodia are benefiting from the world’s lowest labour costs, according to a new global ranking. Risk analytics company Verisk Maplecroft’s Labour Costs Index measures a combination of wages, employment regulations, social security contributions and labor productivity ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen broached the long-running issue of excessive overtime worked by garment factory employees in a speech yesterday, in what at least one analyst saw as a possible play for garment worker support. During his commencement speech at the National University of Management, the ...

Union leader Pav Sina on Monday filed a complaint with the Interior Ministry after an administrator at a Chinese-owned window factory in Svay Rieng province allegedly told three other members of his union that some factory owners were pooling money in order to have Mr. ...

Most employees at a shoe factory where more than 40 workers – including two pregnant women – fainted on Saturday afternoon will return to work today. ...

About 50 female workers fainted at a shoe factory in Kompong Chhnang province Saturday when an embossing machine burst into flames, causing smoke and fumes to fill part of the plant, a union official said Sunday. ...

Although the number of migrant workers who crossed to Thailand through the Poipet International Border Checkpoint decreased slightly from 2013 to 2014, the number of people who died while working in Thailand appeared to increase, a provincial official said this week. ...

Thousands of garment workers at one Phnom Penh factory, and about 100 more at another, protested Thursday over the new minimum wage set for the garment sector late last year, upset that those already earning higher salaries were overlooked. ...

About 50 of Phnom Penh’s 270 gardeners gathered at the National Assembly and then City Hall on Monday morning to deliver petitions asking for a substantial raise to their modest monthly salaries, threatening to go on strike if they were denied. ...

Three of the country’s largest unions on Wednesday added their voices to a global campaign urging member states of the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Governing Body, which Cambodia recently joined, to not revoke the option to go on strike as a fundamental right. ...

A woman lured into marriage in China and a group of men forced to work on a Thai fishing boat in Indonesia are the latest Cambodians rescued after being trafficked abroad. ...

During negotiations yesterday, allegedly defrauded workers in Kampong Thom and a recruitment agency hammered out a deal that saw limited compensation delivered to the aggrieved would-be migrants. ...

The Labor Ministry official in charge of garment factory faintings declared Wednesday’s reopening of a Svay Rieng province factory—where 100 workers fainted in the past week due to chemical fumes—a relative success, with only three more women collapsing while working. ...

During negotiations yesterday, allegedly defrauded workers in Kampong Thom and a recruitment agency hammered out a deal that saw limited compensation delivered to the aggrieved would-be migrants. ...

Indonesian authorities on Wednesday rescued 17 Cambodian migrants enslaved aboard two Thai vessels illegally fishing the archipelago nation’s waters, according to a statement issued by Cambodia’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday. ...

A woman lured into marriage in China and a group of men forced to work on a Thai fishing boat in Indonesia are the latest Cambodians rescued after being trafficked abroad. ...

Nearly two-thirds of surveyed survivors of human trafficking in Southeast Asia show symptoms of depression, while another 40 per cent suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a new study. ...

A garment factory in Svay Rieng province where more than 100 workers fainted in recent days invited six monks to drive out the building’s “bad spirits” on Tuesday and will reopen on Wednesday after agreeing to improve the facility’s ventilation. ...

Hundreds of workers at a new factory in Kampong Speu province continued yesterday to strike for better working conditions after one of their colleagues was allegedly struck with an electroshock weapon on Friday by their Chinese boss. ...

About 50 of Phnom Penh’s 270 gardeners gathered at the National Assembly and then City Hall on Monday morning to deliver petitions asking for a substantial raise to their modest monthly salaries, threatening to go on strike if they were denied. ...