Labor policy and administration

About 250 laborers working at a newly opened $90-million sugar factory complex in Kratie province-hailed by the government as a boon to Cambodia’s economy-staged a protest last Saturday morning demanding to be reimbursed for two weeks worth of unpaid wages. District governor Heng Soha acted ...

Phnom Penh families being pushed to the city’s outskirts to make way for a $142.6 million railway renovation project funded by Australia and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) are falling into debt and finding it harder to earn money and access healthcare according to a ...

Government officials have suggested the widow of the man crushed to death last month at the Wing Star Shoes factory, a supplier to Asics, will still be denied compensation from the National Social Security Fund (NSSF), a labour rights worker said yesterday. American Center for International ...

Child labour is being used at a footwear factory owned by the same Taiwan-based company as Wing Star Shoes – where two workers were killed in a ceiling collapse this month – numerous employees have told the Post. A former Ying Dong employee said the ...

The ILO is preparing to name Cambodian garment factories failing to comply with local safety requirements. The International Labour Organisation says Cambodian garment factories refusing to comply with safety requirements have one last chance before they are named and shamed. Jill Tucker, chief technical advisor for ...

Their stories have become all too familiar – Cambodian fishermen enslaved on fishing boats after being promised lucrative jobs overseas. They’re also becoming increasingly common. Anti-trafficking NGOs told the Post this week that they have noticed an exponential increase in the number of trafficking complaints from ...

Labor rights activists and a government official accused the International Labor Organization’s Better Factories Cambodia program of ineffectiveness in its monitoring of factory conditions following a deadly ceiling collapse on Thursday at a shoe factory in Kompong Speu province. Moeun Tola, labor program head of the ...

India’s ambassador to Cambodia, Dinesh Patnaik, said yesterday that his government will pay outstanding benefits to about 30 restoration workers who lost their jobs at Siem Reap province’s Ta Prohm temple in February – but will not reinstate them. The entire restoration team – more than ...

Cambodia’s National Assembly on Tuesday adopted a draft law on fire prevention with jail term punishment for arsonists, neglected firefighters, and false information providers on fires. Ninety-four out of ninety-seven lawmakers, who were present at the session, passed the law, saying it would help maintain security, ...

Around 20,000 workers from the garment, construction, tourism, banking, service and agriculture sectors want to march to present a petition to the National Assembly on International Labor Day, May 1, but Phnom Penh City Hall did not approve the rally. City hall asked them to wait ...

The Ministry of Post and Telecommunications has revoked the operating licence of bankrupt phone operator Mfone, which went out of business two months ago, while more than 1,000 employees had their jobs officially terminated yesterday. The revocation of the licence and the mass dismissal of the ...

Labour-rights groups are lauding a “historic” deal that will result in about $200,000 in wages and benefits being paid to workers who were stranded when the Kingsland Garment factory in Phnom Penh closed unannounced in December. In a meeting on Friday that took place as more ...

Suppliers to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) and Hennes & Mauritz AB (HMB) agreed yesterday to pay about $145,000 in back wages and severance to about 160 workers at a Cambodian factory that closed in November, a labor activist involved in the deal said. The agreement, which ...

GREATER transparency along the garment supply chain, from producers to buyers, is required in order to strengthen the accountability of retailers, factories and governments in protecting the rights of workers, Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, said yesterday. Speaking in Phnom ...

The International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Better Factories Cambodia program (BFC) must employ more transparency in their monitoring of Cambodia’s factories in order to effectively bring change to the country’s working and wage conditions, a report launched yesterday says. According to “Monitoring in the Dark” a ...

Major hotels are under the microscope after a labour rights group found that some have been failing to pass their entire service charge on to their staff, a violation of the Labour Law. Dave Welsh, country manager of the American Center for International Labor Solidarity(ACILS), said yesterday ...

A group of opposition lawmakers have written to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen urging action against a sugar factory owned by a ruling party official accused of exploiting child labor and grabbing land from villagers. Six Sam Rainsy Party (SRP) parliamentarians sent a letter dated Jan. ...

Free Trade Union of Workers of Cambodia said Tuesday it had sued the director of Thailand’s Mfone Co Ltd for not respecting local labor laws. In a letter issued Tuesday to the Department of Labor Disputes, the union’s deputy secretary general Sam Srey Mom accused Mfone ...

Thailand is warning it will expel 1.5 million illegal workers from the country, a move that could affect around 160,000 Cambodians. Rights workers in Cambodia say the migrant laborers deserve assistance from both Thai and Cambodian authorities to help them work and travel legally. ...

Construction worker Samnang (not his real name), spent weeks confined to a hospital bed after piles of cement crashed down on him while he toiled without a hard hat. During the ensuing weeks of recovery at his home, the 28-year-old nursed head injuries and a broken ...

The abuse of Cambodian maids overseas has become one of the most documented human rights violation here. But as the Government, media, NGOs and aid agencies focus their energies on domestic laborer living abroad, advocates have begun to urge that closer attention be paid to ...

Five workers riding a lift meant to carry animal carcasses up to the fifth floor of a meat roasting facility were left with serious injuries when their metal cage plummeted from the third floor. The five victims, aged from 25 to 38, suffered broken legs ...

Growing calls in Sweden for multinational clothing giant H&M to increase wages for Cambodian garment workers have taken a royal twist. Cambodia’s Prince Charin Norodom, 38, who has lived in Sweden for more than 30 years, told the Post yesterday that he had been working behind ...

Criticism has mounted against Swedish multinational clothing company H&M in its home country following a documentary released last week that sheds light on wages in its source factories in Cambodia. The episode of Swedish network TV4’s Kalla Fakta, or Cold Facts, focuses mainly on Cambodian garment ...