Labor

In Cambodia, where the garment sector accounts for 80 percent of exports, hundreds of thousands of people depend on their slice of the $5 billion industry to survive. But for suppliers currently exhibiting their wares at a trade show this weekend on Phnom Penh’s Koh Pich ...

At least 127 Cambodian garment workers at six different factories got fainted on Friday due to poor health, a local police chief confirmed. Yim Socheat, police chief of Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district, where the incidents occurred, said the victims had been sent to hospitals soon after ...

About 50 workers from the Xin Chang Xin garment factory on Thursday marched for the second time to the Ministry of Labor to demand intervention after the factory allegedly failed to pay two months of wages, workers and a union representative said. ...

Cambodia’s embassy in Malaysia yesterday denied pressuring domestic workers from the Kingdom into renewing their visas, after rights groups told the Post last week that the embassy exploited a legal loophole to keep maids in the country. The statement came as a Malaysian employers association, which has observed the drafting ...

About 3,000 garment workers in Kompong Chhnang province agreed to end their protest and return to work Wednesday after confusion over their monthly salaries was cleared away. Workers from the Chinese-owned Jiun Ye Garment factory in Samakki Meanchey district went on strike Monday after picking up ...

Unions representing garment workers have pledged to reignite protests if the minimum wage for the industry is raised to only $115 next year, a sum they say was offered by the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia during a meeting on Friday. The Labour Advisory Committee (LAC) ...

At least six people, including three Cambodian migrant workers, were killed late on Monday when a condominium construction project north of Bangkok collapsed, according to news reports, officials and witnesses at the scene. Twenty-four people, at least one of whom is Cambodian, were also injured in ...

Bus drivers fired from the Phnom Penh Sorya Transportation company earlier this year waged a fresh protest outside the bus station in Phnom Penh on Monday, calling on passengers to boycott the service until they are rehired or given proper compensation. The 17 drivers were sacked ...

Former bus drivers are set to stage a protest today outside Phnom Penh Sorya Transportation Company in the capital’s Daun Penh district, calling on its management to respect an arbitration ruling to reinstate most of them.   ...

Unions and factories remained at odds over where to peg next year’s minimum wage for the garment sector after a meeting between representatives for both sides on Friday, though they agreed to resume the talks later in the month. Earlier this year, the Labor Advisory Committee, ...

About 200 employees of a Phnom Penh garment factory agreed to go back to work after reaching a deal with the factory Sunday, a day after they walked off the job—with some sewing machines in hand—because the owners could not pay them on time. ...

After four days of waiting amid a mounting death count, Yat Meng got a call that his younger brother, Pheng, was found dead yesterday, buried under the concrete slabs of a collapsed condominium just north of Bangkok. Pheng, 20, was one of two dead Cambodian migrant ...

Most of the infrastructure required for enhanced connectivity in the Greater Mekong Subregion has been put in place, particularly the transport links that form the base of the envisaged economic corridors, Bindu Lohani, vice president of the Asian Development Bank, said yesterday. He made the remark ...

As the razor-wire came down from Freedom Park on Wednesday, a group of unions quickly filed a request to be the first people to hold a demonstration inside the park since it was put into lockdown in early January. The letter, obtained by the Post yesterday, calls on ...

The government’s long-pledged health insurance scheme for private sector employees, including factory workers, is just around the corner, officials promised yesterday while refusing to name a more specific date. On Wednesday, the Ministry of Labour held a public forum on the insurance plan, which is expected ...

Representatives for the employees and owners of a Phnom Penh garment factory gutted by a fire last month will meet at the Ministry of Labor today to try and hammer out a pay package for the workers, though a factory official said they would not ...

ANZ is facing calls for compensation over its funding of a Cambodian sugar mill linked to child labour, forced evictions and land grabs. Media reports on Monday said hundreds of Cambodian farmers had called on the bank to provide compensation for the land they lost due ...

Seven union leaders protesting against being sacked from the Vantage River Textile factory in Preah Sihanouk province each agreed yesterday to accept $300 compensation. Worker representative and sacked employee Keo Srey Pich, 22, said three hours of negotiations between the union, workers and the company, in ...

The number of Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand has risen to 190,000 thanks to the new one-stop service centers set up across the border, Cambodia’s Ministry of Labor said Wednesday. Labor Ministry spokesman Heng Suor said about 190,000 migrant workers—some with a full complement of legal ...

Thailand will lose its beneficial tax treatment on exports to the European Union next year, and Cambodia’s manufacturing sector could be set to capitalise. Following three consecutive years of upper-middle income status as defined by the World Bank, Thailand will on January 1 lose its Generalised ...

Seventy-five Cambodian workers and six children marooned for 10 days after being lured to build a resort on Koh Mook in Trang’s Kantang district were rescued on Sunday evening. Meanwhile, Employment Department chief Sumet Mahosot yesterday said 444,097 migrant workers and 48,541 accompanying persons had ...

Cambodia’s embassy in Kuala Lumpur has played a key role in pressuring domestic workers to stay in the country despite fears for their welfare, rights groups have said. While a moratorium was placed on sending domestic workers to Malaysia in 2011 amid mounting concerns over abuses, ...

Deposite not coming close to achieving their goal of a $160 monthly minimum garment wage, unions announced yesterday that they will raise their demands to $177 for 2015. Ken Chhenglang, acting pres­ident of the National Independent Federation Textile Union of Cambodia (NIFTUC), said about 10 union ...

A group of unions in the U.K. is urging its government to make sure British brands sourcing clothes from Cambodian factories respect their workers’ rights, and to ask the European Union to negotiate a deal with the Cambodian government to improve factory conditions. In a July ...