Labor

The Minister of Labor yesterday defended his ministry’s much-criticized interpretation of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ban on sending maids to Malaysia, after it allowed about 3,000 young women to still be sent abroad despite the serious risk of abuse and exploitation. Minister of Labor Vong Sauth ...

Following repeated reports of abuse and illegal activity, Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday ordered recruitment agencies to indefinitely stop sending Cambodian domestic workers to Malaysia, officials said Friday. Secretary of State for the Labor Ministry Oum Mean said that he had received unofficial information about ...

The Ministry of Labour has been ordered to permanently close the labour recruitment firm T&P following the discovery of more under-age trainees in its Kampong Chhnang centre. The move marks the first time the ministry has shut a labour reruitment firm, and follows intense criticism of ...

Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court on Tuesday gave permission to M&V International Manufacturing garment factory to suspend two Free Trade Union representatives and 13 other workers after they allegedly instigated an illegal protest earlier this month, a court official said Wednesday. Penh Vibol, provincial chief prosecutor, said ...

Cambodia’s education sector needs a complete overhaul in order to reduce unemployment and successfully diversify the economy beyond garment manufacturing, according to a World Bank report released today. The report’s release came after investors and economists said at a trade and investment conference in Phnom Penh ...

MORE than 4,000 workers ended a four-day strike outside the M&V factory in Kampong Chhnang province yesterday after the Arbitration Council intervened, issuing an order for them to return to work. The workers, led by the Free Trade Union of Workers in the Kingdom of ...

UNION officials fired another volley in their battle against a hotel yesterday by announcing that they would file a complaint today with a Siem Reap court, as their protests continued to draw unwanted attention to the tourist town. The Cambodian Tourism and Service Workers Federation complaint ...

Officials said yesterday that the government had suspended a recruitment agency in Kompong Chhnang province suspected of forcibly confining 45 women and that plans were underway to shut it down permanently. Police rescued the women, including 26 girls under the age of 18, who were training ...

The Angkor Village Hotel and Resort is breaking the law by refusing to reinstate 67 sacked workers that the Arbitration Council ruled were unlawfully dismissed, Siem Reap’s deputy governor claimed yesterday. After attending a protest of hotel workers and supporters outside the hotel in Siem Reap ...

Following a raid on a Phnom Penh recruitment agency, military police yesterday detained two people and rescued 22 girls and women aged 13 to 25 who claimed they were being held against their will ahead of being sent to Malaysia to work as maids. Municipal military ...

Job recruitment agencies that send workers overseas often deceive young women through misleading job advertisements by using brokers that have “a position of authority” within the community, according to a new report by the Asia Foundation. According to the report, agencies also inflate migration costs that ...

Zhen Yong Garment Factory Co Ltd has agreed to some of the demands of about 400 workers who went on strike last week, including paying annual bonuses early next month Prum Veasna, deputy of the labor dispute department at the labor ministry, said yesterday that the ...

Provincial authorities in Siem Reap will demand that the Angkor Village Hotel and Resort respect an Arbitration Council decision, which it has so far baulked at, ordering to reinstate more than 60 workers fired since July. Following protests outside the hotel and at a court hearing ...

The Arbitration Council has ordered more than 700 workers at the Wei Xin garment factory to end a week-long strike they have staged in protest against a spate of issues they have with the company over contracts and payment. A decision handed down on Saturday by ...

Figures released by the Ministry of Labor on Friday showed that 1,578 garment factory workers have fainted in workplace incidents since the beginning of this year. Pok Vanthat, deputy director of the Labor Ministry’s Medical Unit and chief of its research committee, said that his committee ...

A group of independent trade unions yesterday put forth a list of demands for changes to Cambodia’s first trade union law, which will be finalised by the government in the coming months. Unionists said the revisions were necessary, as the current draft law would undermine unions ...

At least 24 international apparel brands have pledged to immediately investigate the mass fainting “phenomenon” that has hit the Cambodian garment factories that supply them, the International Labour Organisation says. Executives of global brands had pledged to work together “to determine the precise causes of incidences ...

Multiple government ministries and the International Labor organization will form a group to investigate the mass fainting that have plagued Cambodia’s garment industry over the past several months, Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh said yesterday. There have been at least 15 mass fainting since the beginning ...

Citing a government investigation that revealed factories colluding with unlicensed subcontractors to use unethical labor sources including prisoners, Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh has asked the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia to urge adherence to labor law. Rehabilitation programs meant to teach vocational skills such ...

The government has dropped controversial criminal penalties targeting unionists in its latest draft of the union law, Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh said yesterday. Addressing a meeting of representatives of international apparel brands, including Nike, Adidas and PUMA, unions, government officials and the International Labour Organisation, ...

The biggest names in the apparel industry, including Nike, Puma and Gap, would meet today with officials from the Ministry of Labour to discuss issues plaguing the Cambodian garment manufacturing industry, such as mass fainting and contractual disputes, labour activists said yesterday.  Dave Welsh, country ...

Afraid that the Dai Young Cambodia Co garment factory in Phnom Penh would not be renewing its land lease, more than 800 workers protested on Saturday at the factory in Russei Keo district demanding that the owner sign a guarantee of severance pay, labor unions ...

Eighty-five percent of U.S. companies in Southeast Asia plan to expand their business as the region will become more important in the next two years, the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Singapore said on Monday. “ASEAN continues to grow in importance for businesses in the ...

Continuing the spate of mass fainting at Phnom Penh garment factories, 24 workers fainted at the Heart Enterprise factory on Friday, prompting the factory to shut down for the second time in a week, officials said. The Dangkao district garment factory had reopened on Friday ...