Labor

Thousands of Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand are rushing back across the border, voluntarily repatriating themselves in the face of increasingly hostile rhetoric towards undocumented labourers. In the wake of Thailand’s coup d’état last month, army chief General Prayuth Chan-o-Cha urged better regulation of the workforce ...

A Ministry of Labour official yesterday vowed to go after any of his “corrupt” colleagues that deal with the garment and footwear sector, and urged workers to file complaints about substandard working conditions. ...

A union activist detained in Svay Rieng province on Sunday for delivering fliers promoting a stay-at-home strike was released after three hours, but police kept the leaflets, he said yesterday. When Kem Chamroeun, 25, of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW) brought a stack ...

Before he was arrested in January, Vorn Pov and the union he created were not widely known outside of activist circles. But when he emerged from Phnom Penh’s CC1 prison on Friday, he walked away as one of the highest-profile unionists in the country, and a ...

Being placed on consecutive short-term contracts in Cambodia’s predominantly female-staffed garment sector is forcing many women to choose between a family and a factory job, unionists and rights groups said yesterday. Ken Chenglang, acting president of the National Independent Federation Textile Union of Cambodia, said many ...

Police yesterday morning blocked more than 1,000 garment workers as they tried to march from their Por Sen Chey district factory to the Ministry of Labour to plead for intervention. ...

More than 600 workers have fainted on factory floors so far this year, compared with about 800 such incidents over the whole of 2013, a Labour Ministry official said yesterday. Pok Vanthat, deputy director of the ministry’s labour health department and head of a committee that ...

Police yesterday morning blocked more than 1,000 garment workers as they tried to march from their Por Sen Chey district factory to the Ministry of Labour to plead for intervention. Management at the Ocean Garment factory informed staff on May 24 that it would close for ...

Thailand’s political crisis could create ongoing problems for Cambodian migrant workers, especially night time curfew, a development expert says. Ya Navuth, executive director of Caram Cambodia, said undocumented Cambodian workers in Thailand may not know about the curfew and could be arrested when they travel. ...

The South Korean ambassador to Cambodia, Kim Han-soo, on Monday denied having asked the Labor Ministry to stop a strike at a South Korean-owned garment factory last week, but said the dispute has put a $40 million investment from the parent company on hold. On Sunday, ...

Three months pregnant at the time, Sam Ath doesn’t remember collapsing two months ago at the crowded, muggy garment factory where she works at the southwestern edge of the Cambodian capital. The 30-year-old woke up in a hospital bed, only to be told that she had ...

When Ros Srey Pich was 19, she signed a contract with a recruitment agency that would send her to work as a maid in Malaysia. The recruitment agency, Job Asia, had sourced the teenager from what is now Tbong Khmum province, telling her poor family that ...

Nine of the group of 23 workers and labour activists who were released from custody and given suspended sentences on Friday over January’s garment employee protests will receive medical care in Thailand, rights group Licadho said yesterday. A number of the men were beaten by security ...

About 30 workers at Ghin Yi factory fainted on Monday noon after learning that their colleague fainted at the factory in Chamkar Svay commune of Samaki Meanchey district of Kampong Chhnang province. ...

Twenty-five unionists, garment workers and bystanders were found guilty by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday for their involvement in three separate garment protest-related cases, but were handed down suspended sentences. The 22 men who had not been bailed ahead of trial were ordered ...

Verdicts will be handed down Friday in two garment protest-related cases that rights groups say were built on a weak body of evidence. The two cases occurred months apart but followed a similar narrative: Garment workers fed up with their calls for a higher monthly minimum ...

As several hundred garment workers from the SL Garment factory pelted police with rocks during a protest near the Stung Meanchey pagoda in November, Men Sok Sambath, a 14-year-old scrap collector, decided to join the crowd. “I saw other people throwing rocks at the [police] truck, ...

An International Labour Organization official yesterday called the draft of a Ministry of Labour trade union law “a step backwards” during the opening of a two-day workshop meant to hear concerns of both labour unions and employers. In a speech to worker representatives, members of the ...

About 700 workers at a Svay Rieng province electronics factory were to demonstrate for the third day today after management refused their demands for access to child care and the reinstatement of five union leaders. The provincial department of labour yesterday proved unable to sway management ...

About 1,000 workers protested outside Ocean Garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district on Wednesday to demand compensation for being out of work while the factory suspends its operations for a month due to flagging demand from buyers, a union leader said. Workers have been ...

A villager involved in a long-running land dispute in Kompong Chhnang province with the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem has accused his commune police chief of discrimination after he was refused a character statement he needed to apply for a garment factory ...

Representatives from some of the world’s largest fashion brands and the leader of one of the world’s biggest union organizations met this week with Cambodian officials and local clothing manufacturers to demand better treatment and improve workplace safety for the country’s estimated 600,000 garment workers. Garment ...

A major international union wants Cambodian garment workers and factory managers to return to negotiations, following meetings between international companies and officials. The IndustriALL Global Union said Tuesday that management should seriously consider a minimum wage of $160 per month, after international buyers such as Levis ...

Takeo Provincial Court released eight unionists yesterday after they were questioned for several hours. The unionists from the Coalition of Cambodia Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union (C.CAWDU) were arrested on May 23 after they led workers to protest at JSD Textile (Cambodia) to demand better work condition. ...