Labor

Growing calls in Sweden for multinational clothing giant H&M to increase wages for Cambodian garment workers have taken a royal twist. Cambodia’s Prince Charin Norodom, 38, who has lived in Sweden for more than 30 years, told the Post yesterday that he had been working behind ...

The American Center for International Labor Solidarity has set its sights on the Herculean task of unionizing Cambodia’s civil service, a move that, were it successful, could have profound implications for the country’s political landscape. The term civil service in Cambodia has unusually broad application, referring to bureaucrats, ...

The mother of a domestic maid allegedly stranded in Malaysia has become the latest Cambodian claimant to file an official complaint to the Ministry of Interior over labor abuse in the country. Em Sokhum said her 24-year-old daughter Chher Sophorn left to pursue work in Malaysia more than ...

Criticism has mounted against Swedish multinational clothing company H&M in its home country following a documentary released last week that sheds light on wages in its source factories in Cambodia. The episode of Swedish network TV4’s Kalla Fakta, or Cold Facts, focuses mainly on Cambodian garment ...

A new made-service company that claims to be the only one of its kind in Cambodia is offering an alternative employment option for the country’s many domestic workers who face insecure, and often abusive, workplace conditions overseas. Ming Hour Home Service, which opened in July, employs ...

Some 285 million workers will migrate for employment when ASEAN countries open their borders to each other in 2015, Prime Minister Hun Sen predicted yesterday, as he urged speedier regional legislative action to ensure they could travel safely. At an ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Council meeting, the premier warned ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday questioned the first of two human rights workers who are suing local officials for allegedly disrupting a July meeting they were hosting for villagers in Lumphat district. Deputy court prosecutor Ros Saram said he questioned Chhim Savuth, program officer for the ...

The owner of a labor firm repeatedly accused of human trafficking, who is also the sister of one of the country’s top police officials, has been appointed head of the Association of Cambodian Recruitment Agencies (ACRA). Grave concerns have been expressed by rights groups over the appointment of Ung Seang ...

Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand, Japan, Malaysia and Korea have sent home an average of US$360 million a year in remittances, according to Seng Sakada, general director of Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training. Overseas Cambodian migrants mainly work in the fields of housework, construction, factories ...

Workers from bankrupt plush-toy factory First & Main are still owed money after the Ministry of Social Affairs auctioned $200,000 worth of factory equipment for just $21,000, a labor rights advocate said Sunday. More than 350 workers were left stranded when the US-owned teddy bear factory closed in ...

In a rare intervention, the Thai Labor Ministry has stepped in to stop the exploitation of migrant workers from Cambodia and Myanmar at a seafood factory in the country’s south, correspondence obtained by the Post reveals. The ministry found the Phatthana Seafood factory, in Songkhla province, which employs ...

Six people were arrested in three separate incidents for trying to send 236 Cambodians into Thailand where they were to work illegally, police said yesterday. Prak Saony, Kompong Chhnang provincial anti-human trafficking and juvenile protection bureau police chief, said that police arrested five people in a ...

Less than a month before Asean heads of state are expected to approve the first-ever human rights declaration for the regional group, Cambodian and Indonesian NGOs yesterday urged member states to give their organizations a larger role in the process. In the works for more than ...

For political economist Sophal Ear, this view is more nuanced. In his book ‘Aid Dependence in Cambodia: How Foreign Assistance Undermined Democracy‘, published by the Columbia University Press (2012), years of dependency are not showing positive results in the rehabilitation of Cambodia, its democracy and war ...

H&M Hennes & Mauritz’s head of sustainability Helena Helmersson was in Cambodia last week to meet with ILO/Better Works Cambodia on how to improve working conditions in export garment factories. Helmersson said in a blog post that the lack of dialogue between workers and factory management ...

The Cambodian government has developed six prakases related to a controversial sub-decree that regulates the recruitment of migrant workers, but it cannot yet release the details, a Labor Ministry official said yesterday. On the sidelines of an ASEAN meeting in Siem Reap aimed at curtailing migrant worker abuses, Seng Sakada, ...

Tens of thousands of garment workers will enjoy an early start to the Pchum Ben holiday today as they trek back to their homeland. Their excitement, however, is not shared by their bosses, who will be left to rue a week-long halt in production. Enterprise and establishment ...

Villagers on Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia, who depend on fishing for subsistence, say their livelihoods are threatened by illegal commercial fishing, which continues after a government ban. And they say authorities in charge of enforcing the ban are being bribed to look the other ...

The Ministry of Labor on Sunday launched an educational campaign aimed at preventing further mass faintings in garment factories, a ministry official said yesterday. Meng Hong, director of the ministry’s inspection and legal affairs department, said that the campaign would target more than 30,000 garment workers ...

Education garment workers and their bosses on how to avoiding fainting is the latest strategy the Ministry of Labor is using to address a problem that has plagued the industry in the past two years, a ministry official said yesterday. Labor Ministry Secretary of State Oum Mean said he ...

Garment factory workers who set tyres ablaze during a strike on Friday claimed yesterday they were burned when police pushed them into their own fire. Snguon Vannary was one of several workers who said his feet had been burned when police broke up the strike at ...

Officials from the government  U.N. and human rights groups on Friday put forward amendments to draft memorandum of understanding (MoU) that is designed to impose safeguards for Cambodians to travel to work as maids in Malaysia. While the original draft by the Malaysian government sets out the responsibility of ...

Deputy Prime Minister Sok An yesterday approved the creation of a joint commission which will undertake the role of evicting hundreds of families living near the Phnom Penh International Airport before the Asean and East Asia summits commence next month. Mr. Sath [Choam Chao commune ...

As buyers for international clothing brands yesterday praised the renewal of an agreement aimed at reducing strikes in the garment sector, labor unions and factory owners said that only proper implementation would determine the agreement’s effectiveness. Modeled after an earlier pact from 2010 to prevent work ...