Labor

In the latest bid for an increase in garment-industry wages, Free Trade Union (FTU) president Chea Mony yesterday called on the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) to come to the table and discuss a $120-per-month minimum wage. A few days after Cambodian Confederation of Unions ...

Union reps and government officials are offering significantly different – if both substantial – numbers in their year-end tallies of garment workers who fainted on the job in 2012. The Free Trade Union yesterday announced that the number of workers to faint in factories rose to ...

Approximately 1,686 workers in garment and shoe factories got fainted last year due mainly to overwork, poor health, exposure to chemical substances, and hysteria, a Cambodian labor official said Wednesday. Pok Vanthath, vice-chief of the Labor Ministry’s vocational training department, said the mass fainting incidents had ...

Amid threats of another mass strike in the thriving garment sector, the Ministry of Social Affairs has called a meeting with the industry’s leading players to discuss union demands for a $150-per-month minimum wage, a letter obtained yesterday reveals. At the behest of Prime Minister Hun ...

More than 200 garment workers gathered at Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park yesterday to protest for higher wages before marching to Wat Botum Park and the National Assembly. The workers from three factories – Cambo Handsome, Best One and Yang Fong – are requesting $150 as their ...

The Cambodian Confederation of Unions (CCU) is distributing 10,000 leaflets to garment workers across Phnom Penh, urging them to join a strike on Sunday, CCU officials said yesterday. “We would like to invite them to join us to demand for an increase if the base ...

Thailand is warning it will expel 1.5 million illegal workers from the country, a move that could affect around 160,000 Cambodians. Rights workers in Cambodia say the migrant laborers deserve assistance from both Thai and Cambodian authorities to help them work and travel legally. ...

Union leaders are planning a demonstration in January to protest the Svay Rieng Provincial Court’s decision last week to drop charges against the former Bavet City governor, Chhouk Bundith, who was the chief suspect in the shooting of three garment factory workers during a violent ...

More than 60 union leaders lost their jobs at garment factories in the past nine months for trying to unionise co-workers, their representatives claimed yesterday. Fourteen members of the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions endured threats, discrimination and ultimately a message they were no longer welcome ...

Cambodia is facing a grave labor shortage due to the large number of workers seeking jobs in Thailand, Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday, urging employers to help reduce illegal migration by improving working conditions at home. Mr. Hun Sen also applauded growing Japanese investment in ...

More than 300 workers from the Tropicana Casino and resort in Banteay Meanchey provinces’s Poipet town obeyed a court order to end striking and return to work yesterday and official said. Hong Prakorb, a provincial official for the Labour Ministry said more than 200 workers ...

There was so much noise blasting from the loudspeakers that the occasional rallying cry from striking workers at the demonstration in Phnom Penh’s Dangkao district last week could hardly be heard. One 2-meter high stack of amplifiers had been set up outside the Nex-T factory and ...

Respecting labor standards in Cambodian factories will benefit the garment manufacturing industry in the long-run as more international brands will be tempted to source from the country, labor experts said yesterday at a round-table discussion in Phnom Penh. ...

Last week, the crane on the top of Gold Tower 42 was removed, adding to the sense that the completion of the Korean-owned skyscraper is ultimately a distant hope. The owner of the unfinished skyscraper, sitting at the corner of Sihanouk and Monivong Boulevards entered into ...

Cambodia’s garment factories face a shortage of workers, because of migration, more job opportunities in different sectors and poor labour conditions, industry experts said. According to Ken Loo, secretary general of the Garment Manufacturer’s Association in Cambodia, there is a definite shortage of labour in Phnom ...

PHNOM PENH – As more and more Cambodians enter the job market, with a growing population of young people, there still remain plenty of job opportunities with foreign investors at home, according to a new study by the Ministry of Labor. But people either don’t ...

Economic ministers from Asean’s 10 member states signed an agreement yesterday to loosen restrictions around the movement of skilled labor in the region, part of preparation for the integration of the Asean Economic Community in 2015. The Asean Movement of Natural Persons Agreement is supposed to ...

Construction worker Samnang (not his real name), spent weeks confined to a hospital bed after piles of cement crashed down on him while he toiled without a hard hat. During the ensuing weeks of recovery at his home, the 28-year-old nursed head injuries and a broken ...

The abuse of Cambodian maids overseas has become one of the most documented human rights violation here. But as the Government, media, NGOs and aid agencies focus their energies on domestic laborer living abroad, advocates have begun to urge that closer attention be paid to ...

Activist groups are planning to hold two separate forums this week in Phnom Penh to call attention to human rights issues and other problems in Asean countries as a meeting of regional and world leaders begin in the city. The assembly will meet ahead of ...

Approximately 150 parliamentarians, government officials, recruitment agency representatives, trade unions leaders, and development partners gathered here on Monday to discuss ways and measures to promote and protect the rights of Cambodian migrant workers. Speaking at the opening of the parliamentary forum on the promotion and protection ...

Workers who were left stranded after protests at three Tai Yang Enterprises garment factories dragged on for months earlier this year were waiting for a long awaited resolution when they attended the arbitration yesterday. The 53 employees of the Kandal provincial factory, which supplies Levi’s and ...

Japanese investment in Cambodia is steadily increasing as a result of sharply rising wages in China and other Southeast Asian nations. But experts warned this week that for sustained investment growth—and to avoid driving Japanese companies to other attractive investment destinations such as Burma —the ...

Five workers riding a lift meant to carry animal carcasses up to the fifth floor of a meat roasting facility were left with serious injuries when their metal cage plummeted from the third floor. The five victims, aged from 25 to 38, suffered broken legs ...