Labor

In a closed-door meeting with garment industry union leaders on Sunday, Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered his audience to ensure that factory workers don’t organise political protests or associate with the remnants of the now-dissolved opposition party. While no audio from the speech was released ...

Workers at the First Gawon Apparel factory in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district are planning a procession to many different institutions as well as Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house next week to request intervention in a dispute over wages. ...

During a Khmer New Year visit to South Korea, Labour Minister Ith Samheng on Monday signed a $3.1 million agreement with his South Korean counterpart to empower Cambodia’s public employment services over the next four years. ...

A memorandum of understanding between the National Social Security Fund and the Techo Volunteer Youth Doctor Association was signed on Wednesday in order to improve healthcare for garment workers. The MoU was signed by TYDA chairman Hun Manet and NSSF director Ouk Samvithya. ...

The Ministry of Labour on Tuesday released the names of four factories whose workers will be compensated after their employers absconded owing back pay and severance. Labour Minister Ith Sam Heng said abandoned workers at Benoh Apparel, Yu Fa Garment Industry, Great Honour Textile Factory ...

Police in Mondulkiri province detained 27 Vietnamese who crossed the border illegally in Sen Monorom city. Deputy provincial police chief Tieng Saoroth said they were detained for questioning on Saturday in Sen Monorom city where they were selling clothes. ...

The government has paid about $1.2 million to nearly 12,000 female garment workers who have had babies so far this year. According to a report released yesterday by the National Social Security Fund, 11,706 female garment workers delivered babies in January, February and the first 22 ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday pledged his commitment to preventing garment factory owners from escaping their obligations to workers by closing their factories without warning, even as the current lack of a formal system for dealing with such situations has left at least one ...

The Cambodian Embassy in Thailand has warned migrant workers that Thai authorities will begin punishing them in April if they fail to renew their work permits. Holders of temporary documents would need to get them extended by March 31. ...

A group representing some of the largest apparel brands in the US and Europe – including Gap, H&M and ASOS – expressed “growing concern” on Tuesday over several controversial labour laws and ongoing court cases against unionists described as restrictive and unjust. ...

The government has accepted a request from a senior officer of the US State Department to hold another discussion on the draft minimum wage law before it is approved. After meeting with Sarah Morgan, an official with the US Office of International Labour Affairs, Labour Minister ...

Donica Pattie, Canada’s Ambassador to Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, on Friday lauded Cambodia’s recent advancements in factory labour conditions, which she said might prompt Canada to increase purchases from Cambodian textile manufacturers, according to a high-ranking Cambodian official. ...

The Labour Ministry will send more than 200 trainers to factories and relevant institutes to educate workers about labour rights. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Soeung Sarsochetta, secretary of state at the Labour Ministry, said 250 trainers from the Labour Ministry would go to factories, businesses ...

Strikes in Cambodia plummeted by more than half last year, according to the Ministry of Labour’s annual report – a statistic lauded by the government as evidence that worker conditions had improved but rejected by labour advocates as a sign that dissent was being suppressed. ...

For Peng Phalla, a sewing machine repairman by trade, the beginning of the end was December 8 – the day he filed the paperwork to form a union. Phalla had spent the past two years helping a factory in Kampong Cham province churn out baby ...

Nearly 100,000 Cambodians were sent to work overseas last year, an increase of 12.6 percent compared with the previous year that saw about 85,000 workers migrate, according to a Ministry of Labour report. The report, issued yesterday, said that last year Cambodia sent 96,338 labourers ...

Cambodian and Myanmar fishermen in Thailand are often paid below the minimum wage, see their payment withheld and face abuses, according to a new International Labour Organisation study. For the baseline study Ship to Shore Rights the ILO interviewed 434 mostly Myanmar and Cambodian fishermen ...

The Labour Ministry has created a technical working group to study and investigate what causes fainting in an attempt to reduce episodes of fainting at factories nationwide. Labour Minister Ith Samheng, who is also chairman of the National Committee for Health and Work Safety, said the ...

The government will begin to pay out of pocket for severance wages for labourers at abruptly shuttered factories whose owners have fled, effectively enacting a pro-worker policy without further burdening private businesses – albeit at the risk of discouraging good corporate citizenship, experts say. ...

A group of 35 international labour and human rights advocacy groups yesterday called for charges against a trio of Cambodian civil society activists to be dropped. “We, the undersigned global unions and international human rights and workers’ rights organizations, call for the charges against Cambodian human ...

The Ministry of Labour and United Nations yesterday pledged to continue working on a project that is aiding young women and men in their search for decent and productive employment opportunities. ...

Research has shown some staff in the garment sector can now earn up to $480 each month as unions and the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia congratulated workers for taking home the new minimum monthly wage of $170 for the first time. ...

The Labour Ministry’s National Committee for Health and Work Safety held its first meeting yesterday pledging to investigate the reasons for faintings amongst factory workers. ...

Officials from the Ministry of Labour met with former workers from three garment factories in the capital’s Por Senchey district this morning after the owner absconded without warning last week, leaving 2,000 workers without their severance or salary for the month of January. ...