Labor

Roughly 2,000 workers from the Malaysian-owned Global Apparels Limited garment factory in Phnom Penh went on strike yesterday after the factory announced it would be reducing staff numbers by 500 over the coming months, union representatives said yesterday. ...

About 500 people gathered outside Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison on Tuesday to demand the release of form­er Capitol Tours bus driver Nan Vanna and la­bor activist Ros Si­phay, who were arrested two weeks ago for participating in a demonstration against the company. ...

The Ministry of Labour is eyeing the creation of a draft law that would codify the sometimes-nebulous process that determines the garment industry’s minimum wage, attendees at the ministry’s annual meeting were told last week. ...

The Cambodian Embassy in Kuwait successfully rescued a Cambodian woman working as a maid in Saudi Arabia who complained of abusive working conditions, lack of food and of having pay withheld. Him Srey, a Cham Muslim from Kampong Cham province who went to Saudi Arabia ...

As many as 60,000 Cambodian deportees from Thailand are expected to cross back into Cambodia this year, according to Samaritan’s Purse, an international NGO that works with deportees and migrants along the border with Thailand. ...

Despite their overwhelmingly female workforce, garment factories in Kompong Speu province fail to adequately address the maternal health and child-care needs of their staff, according to new study set to be released by the French NGO Enfants and Developpment. ...

A prosecutor at the Kompong Speu Provincial Court said on Wednesday that charges would stand against five union officials who were released on bail last month af­ter they were arrested during a brawl with a rival association, de­spite calls by a prominent labor leader to ...

Cambodia’s Labor Minister Ith Samheng said Wednesday that overseas Cambodian workers had remitted more than 1 billion U.S. dollars to their families in Cambodia a year. ...

Officials blamed food poisoning for sparking the mass fainting of about 40 garment workers in a factory in the Svay Rieng border town of Bavet on Monday afternoon. ...

More than 100 workers from Japanese-owned quality control firm Kuwahara, whose office is located in the Cambodiana Hotel, gathered in a park across the street from the hotel yesterday morning to boycott their employer and demand they institute a litany of conditions that were born ...

A boycott of the Capitol Bus Company organised by former drivers and their supporters is picking up steam online after a brutal beatdown took place at a protest last week. ...

Twenty female garment workers at Evergreen Apparel factory in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district fainted yesterday because of toilet fumes funnelled through the ventilation system, though heat stress and heavy workloads were also possible factors. ...

Cambodia and Saudi Arabia on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding to begin work on opening a pipeline for Cambodians to work in the gulf nation, which has been routinely criticised for failing to protect migrant domestic workers from abysmal treatment and slave-like conditions. ...

Eleven opposition activists who have been jailed since 2014 for supposedly participating in an “insurrection” will have their appeal against their conviction heard on March 17, their lawyer said on Friday. ...

SAUDI ARABIA on Thursday signed a contract with Cambodia for recruitment of domestic helps from that country. ...

A fire burned through 45 hectares of sugarcane plantation belonging to three companies in Svay Rieng province’s Svay Tiep district on Tuesday, with one company representative suspecting that the fire was intentionally set. ...

More than 30 workers fainted at a garment factory in Kandal prov­ince over the past two days after inhaling noxious fumes circulated by a ventilation fan located near the facility’s toilets, an official said.   ...

Four suspects in a human trafficking case were tried by Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday over allegations that they organized the forced marriage of a 21-year-old woman to a Chinese husband in 2015. ...

Consular officials yesterday were working to repatriate a Cambodian maid fleeing what she described as unfair working conditions in Saudi Arabia, even as Cambodia’s minister of labour was en route to seal a long-awaited deal to open a pipeline of workers to the Gulf nation. ...

The president of a tuk-tuk and motodop drivers’ association, whose members were recorded on video brutally beating protesting bus drivers over the weekend, said he would file complaints against prominent union and civil society leaders for sparking the violence his own group was accused of ...

With the American economy expanding, Cambodia’s total export to the country increased  slightly more than 9 per cent last year over 2014, the latest US trade data shows. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday charged two protesters involved in a bloody scuffle that left scores injured over the weekend, while another four prominent unionists were also charged in a significant expansion of the controversial case. ...

A bloody scuffle in Phnom Penh on Saturday left scores injured after protesting bus drivers and their supporters were brutally set upon by a rival association armed with sticks, metal bars and hammers. ...

The Appeal Court on Thursday upheld convictions of intentional violence and causing property damage against 13 unionists and workers who were arrested during a riot outside a Phnom Penh industrial park on January 3, 2014, at which military police shot dead at least five people. ...