Labor

The Garment Manufactures Association of Cambodia (GMAC) and International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Better Factories Cambodia yesterday asked factory owners to voluntarily conduct structural audits on their buildings in light of building collapses at two garment factories that killed two people and injured 23. “In the ...

The ILO is preparing to name Cambodian garment factories failing to comply with local safety requirements. The International Labour Organisation says Cambodian garment factories refusing to comply with safety requirements have one last chance before they are named and shamed. Jill Tucker, chief technical advisor for ...

Their stories have become all too familiar – Cambodian fishermen enslaved on fishing boats after being promised lucrative jobs overseas. They’re also becoming increasingly common. Anti-trafficking NGOs told the Post this week that they have noticed an exponential increase in the number of trafficking complaints from ...

When a 100-metre-long section of a Phnom Penh garment factory crumpled in on itself like a cheap pup tent, Sen Sok district officials promised an investigation. The results of that investigation, which was to have taken place more than a year ago, in March 2012, ...

The Arbitration Council, an independent body that resolves labor disputes in Cambodia’s garment sector, celebrated its 10th anniversary yesterday, though officials expressed concern that funding for the body was due to run out in March next year. Oum Mean, secretary of state at the Ministry of ...

The dining hall of a garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district that supplies clothes to U.S. brand Gap collapsed into a pond Monday, injuring more than 20 workers who were eating lunch, workers and officials said. The hall, which is part of Top World Garment ...

Cambodian migrant workers sent home $256 million last year, according to a report from a U.N. agency and the World Bank, which was released in Bangkok yesterday. The report from the bank and Rome-based International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), titled Sending Money Home to Asia, ...

Employees at a Taiwanese-owned shoe factory in Kompong Speu province where two workers were killed when one of the building’s floors collapsed on Thursday have been ordered back to work today, despite ongoing concerns from labor activists about the building’s safety. While conceding that some parts ...

Unions representing more than 15,000 members have called for justice for three women ahead of round two of legal action against their alleged shooter, deposed Bavet town governor Chhouk Bandith. Bandith, who is accused of shooting the three workers during a protest at a factory in ...

Cambodia has dispatched 4,779 workers to Thailand, South Korea and Japan in the first three months of this year, according to a report from the Ministry of Labor on Friday. During the January-March period this year, the country sent 4, 100 workers to Thailand, 678 workers ...

Labor rights activists and a government official accused the International Labor Organization’s Better Factories Cambodia program of ineffectiveness in its monitoring of factory conditions following a deadly ceiling collapse on Thursday at a shoe factory in Kompong Speu province. Moeun Tola, labor program head of the ...

The deaths of at least two Cambodian workers and injuries sustained by 10 colleagues at a shoe factory southwest of Phnom Penh once more shine a light on conditions in the global garment manufacturing industry. Thursday’s accident at the Wing Star Shoe factory in the Cambodian ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen announced in late March that the nation was on target to move from the status of a low-income to a lower-middle-income nation by the end of 2013, ranking it the 15th country that obtained high economic growth in the world in the ...

Cambodian Confederation of Unions president Rong Chhun yesterday appealed to landlords with properties close to garment factories not to take advantage of the industry’s minimum wage increase by raising rent prices. The minimum monthly salary in the garment sector – Cambodia’s biggest export industry – officially ...

India’s ambassador to Cambodia, Dinesh Patnaik, said yesterday that his government will pay outstanding benefits to about 30 restoration workers who lost their jobs at Siem Reap province’s Ta Prohm temple in February – but will not reinstate them. The entire restoration team – more than ...

The Cambodian Confederation of Unions (CCU) urged all apartment landlords to not increase their rent because garment and footwear employees get only a basic salary of $80 per month. A statement issued Monday said the wage increase from $61 per month to $80 will be implemented ...

Cambodia’s National Assembly on Tuesday adopted a draft law on fire prevention with jail term punishment for arsonists, neglected firefighters, and false information providers on fires. Ninety-four out of ninety-seven lawmakers, who were present at the session, passed the law, saying it would help maintain security, ...

More than 50 engineers employed by Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Construction Co. Ltd. to work on a new Neak Loueng Bridge in Kandal province protested on Wednesday over paying income tax of 10 percent and are threatening to go on strike again if their employer dose ...

About 5,000 Cambodian workers took to the street on Wednesday to mark the International Labor Day, calling for pay rise, better labor conditions and decrease in petrol prices, a union representative said. Marchers, mostly garment workers, held banners and walked from the Freedom Park near the ...

The government’s abuse of land rights and indigenous minorities were among the top concerns raised Tuesday by non-governmental groups at a workshop in Phnom Penh on Cambodia’s progress toward achieving a long list of U.N. human rights recommendations. As part of the U.N. Human Rights Council’s ...

Police at border checkpoints have in the past weeks stopped more than 2,200 people in Banteay Meanchey province from crossing into Thailand to look for better paid work, officials said yesterday. The focus on Cambodian workers migrating to Thailand-many illegally-comes amid a shortage of labor at ...

After the fourth Joint Trade Commission (JTC) recently, Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom said that Thailand and Cambodia had the potential to drive two-way trade up by 30 per cent, due to strong growth in 2012. Last year, bilateral trade grew by 40.5 per cent year on ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Saturday asked some 4,000 garment factory workers for their votes in July’s national elections at a rally in Phnom Penh attended by members of several CPP-aligned unions, according to those in attendance. Cambodian Union Federation president Choun Mom Thol said ...

The government has won an arbitration case in a World Bank court, successfully countering a $300 million claim made by a U.S based company over a failed power plant project dating back to 1996. According to a statement from the Council of Ministers’ Press and Quick ...