Labor

The Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM) is hoping to turn a select group of garment workers into muckrakers by offering a journalism program through the Voice of Democracy news outlet. Free of charge, the course will last until October and have a firm focus on ...

The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia says it will hold a workshop next month to explain to foreign managers why Cambodians behave in certain ways. “This workshop will provide the participants with relevant cultural information about the Cambodian workers and will show the different perspectives from ...

A government committee charged with assessing damage from the garment worker protests in December and January has put the value of the destruction at over $250,000. It places blame squarely on the opposition CNRP and a trio of union leaders. That committee’s report, released Thursday, ...

When is a strike not a strike? That’s a question being asked after union leaders yesterday announced they will inform garment factory owners that their members want to use annual leave days to wage their stay-at-home strike the week after Khmer New Year. The leaders of eight ...

The government today will begin strict inspections of agencies that recruit workers to send overseas, Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng said Tuesday. The labor minister has previously threatened to suspend or revoke the licenses of agencies that do not comply with labor laws. Speaking at a workshop ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday heard the case of three people who were charged with fraudulently obtaining passports for four Cambodian women in an attempt to send them to China for marriage. ...

Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng said Tuesday that he has sent a letter responding to 30 international clothing brands who recently wrote to the government expressing their concerns over a draft union law which could allow for the arbitrary breakup of unions. Speaking outside a conference ...

Moments after Prak Sovannary heard the Court of Appeal denied her husband’s request for bail, she sobbed over a speaker affixed to the top of a tuk-tuk, condemning the decision to about 150 supporters. “Release him! Release him!” said Sovannary, the wife of Independent Democracy of ...

Police and human rights workers are investigating claims that a Chinese-owned sugarcane plantation in Preah Vihear province has been employing child workers since December. Oeu Bunthany said the Y Heng Company fired her on Saturday after she complained to local police that up to 20 children ...

Employees at the Kampong Speu shoe factory where a ceiling collapse killed two workers last May are headed back to work today after more than a week on strike, but will take their demands to the Arbitration Council. ...

A union leader among 21 workers and activists arrested in January demonstrations will appear in the Court of Appeal to argue for bail next week, despite the same court denying his request last month. Vorn Pov, president of Independent Democracy of Informal Economy Association (IDEA), and ...

Thousands of workers at the Wing Star Shoes Co. Ltd. on Wednesday blocked the road to the factory in Kompong Speu province for two hours. They demanded the company raise their bonuses by $5 and properly enforce labor laws after arbitration talks failed Tuesday. It was ...

Two founding members of Cambodia’s largest independent garment worker union say they were forced out of their jobs for investigating corruption. Members of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union (C.CAWDU), media outlets and several labour rights organisations received a letter dated March 14 and ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court has finished an investigation into the shooting deaths of five protesting garment factory workers, and the wounding of more than 40 others, during a military police operation against stone-throwing strikers on January 3, Judge Phou Povsun said Sunday. “We had finished ...

Amid a continually rising rate of industrial accidents and deaths, the Ministry of Labour introduced a campaign focused on identifying workplace hazards before tragedy strikes. Since the ministry began keeping track of 960 Cambodian factories in 2009, workplace accidents have risen by nearly 375 per cent, ...

A 44-year-old woman was run over and killed by a harvesting machine on Sunday while working on a sugarcane plantation in Kompong Speu province owned by CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat, marking at least the second death on the plantation since December. Y Mom, originally from ...

European Union Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht said he has no plans to launch an investigation into Cambodia’s much-criticized sugarcane plantations after a meeting with Commerce Minister Sun Chanthol in Phnom Penh on Tuesday. Bottom line: Cambodia’s free trade benefits to Europe are safe for ...

Thousands of workers at the Wing Star Shoes factory demonstrated Tuesday for the second day in a row outside the factory in Kom­pong Speu province after a meeting between union and company officials failed to reach an agreement that would end an ongoing strike, worker ...

The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) says it will hold a one-day training course on procedures to resolve labor disputes on Tuesday. ...

Provincial Ministry of Labour officials will today meet with union representatives and management at the factory where a ceiling collapse killed two workers last May, in an attempt to resolve a strike. About 5,000 employees at Wing Star Shoes, an Asics supplier, walked off the job ...

About 7,000 workers protested in front of the Wing Star Shoes Co. Ltd. factory in Kompong Speu province on Monday, demanding that the company raise their bonuses by $5 and properly enforce a number of labor laws, a union official said. The strike comes ten months ...

A small set of Cambodian factories being monitored by the International Labor Organization have showed some signs of improvement, according to a recent report. The ILO’s Better Factories initiative monitors 51 facilities. In a new report, the ILO says 30 of those factories showed signs of ...

Unionists and labour rights officials are applauding a website scheduled to go live today that will hold to account garment factories that flout Cambodia’s labour law. The site, created and maintained by the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Better Factories Cambodia (BFC) program, will publicly name factories ...

Two union organizers have filed a complaint with the Phnom Penh Municipal Court claiming that the senior leaders of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union (CCAWDU) have embezzled money that was meant to be paid to workers in compensation following a dispute with ...