Garments and textiles

Cambodian Labor Minister Ith Samheng said on Sunday that the country’s garment and footwear industries, the kingdom’s largest foreign currency earner, are comprised of 1,087 factories with 700,000 direct jobs. ...

Ministry of Labour officials have agreed to allow the selling off of equipment inside a Phnom Penh garment factory, abandoned by its owner at the end of January, to pay money owed to workers, union officials said Tuesday. ...

UK retailer Marks & Spencer and the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia (GMAC) have disputed the details of a report alleging labour rights abuses are still rife in the country’s garment factories, with both claiming they are committed to providing and supporting safe working conditions. ...

On a dusty highway on the edge of this port city, thousands of young women and a few hundred young men block evening traffic as they stream out of the New Star Shoes factory. ...

Cambodia has rejected a U.S.- based Human Rights Watch’s “labor abuse” report, saying the report is groundless, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Labor late on Friday. ...

Human Rights Watch says lax labor laws in Cambodia are allowing garment factories, including many suppliers for Western brands, to take advantage of vulnerable workers. In a report released Thursday, the New York-based rights group documented a “persistent pattern of labor rights violations,” including forced overtime, ...

Human Rights Watch says it has uncovered alleged abuses at Cambodian garment factories that supply Marks & Spencer, Gap, H&M, Adidas and Armani. The pressure group found evidence of discrimination and anti-union practices, it says. ...

More than 400 former employees of the abandoned DF Fashion Apparel (Cambodia) in Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district will each receive between $500 and $600 in back pay owed to them today. ...

After the sudden, unannounced disappearance of their factory’s owner last Friday, more than 400 garment workers at DF Fashion Apparel (Cambodia) in Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district gathered at the factory yesterday, demanding back wages. ...

The Cambodian People’s Party and Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) have set up a joint working group to draft rent control law, a senior opposition official said Saturday. ...

Garment workers in Myanmar protesting over pay and factory conditions threatened to continue strikes Tuesday unless their demands are met and authorities release two of their representatives detained earlier this month. As many as 200,000 people work in garment factories in Myanmar, according to the ...

Most employees at a shoe factory where more than 40 workers – including two pregnant women – fainted on Saturday afternoon will return to work today. ...

About 50 female workers fainted at a shoe factory in Kompong Chhnang province Saturday when an embossing machine burst into flames, causing smoke and fumes to fill part of the plant, a union official said Sunday. ...

Viet Nam expects to raise its textile and garment production by 20 per cent in order to boost the sector’s export value by US$4 billion to $28.3 billion this year. Viet Nam also intends to step up its textile and garment exports by 13 per ...

Hundreds of workers at a new factory in Kampong Speu province continued yesterday to strike for better working conditions after one of their colleagues was allegedly struck with an electroshock weapon on Friday by their Chinese boss. ...

The Svay Rieng provincial labor department on Monday ordered a Taiwanese-owned garment factory to temporarily close and improve its ventilation after more than 100 workers collapsed in two separate mass faintings in recent days. ...

During a graduation ceremony at Royal University of Law and Economics, Prime Minister Hun Sen said he and the opposition leader agreed to create a law to prevent landlords from raising rent. ...

Garment workers around the country have started picking up paychecks this month that for the first time include the $28 increase the government added to the sector’s previous minimum wage of $100. But with available overtime hours on the wane, enthusiasm for the raise is ...

Bilateral trade between Cambodia and the United States was valued at 3.17 billion U.S. dollars in 2014, a 5 percent rise from 3.01 billion U.S. dollars in 2013, the figures of the U.S. Department of Commerce showed Friday. ...

The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) has called on all trade unionists to respect the law and halt violence if they want stability in Cambodia’s garment sector. ...

Military police in Kompong Speu province on Friday arrested eight men for attempting to rob a parked container truck full of undergarments from a Phnom Penh factory, but released six of the suspects the same day, officials said Sunday. Hong Vinol, director of the military ...

About 1,800 people fainted at work in 2014, roughly 1,000 more than the previous year, according to Cambodian Labour Confederation (CLC) statistics surveying multiple industries in the Kingdom. Work-related deaths fell from about 96 in 2013 to 73 in 2014, while issues such as arrests and ...

About 1,000 workers at a Takeo province garment factory who have been on strike since Monday are due to return to work today after negotiations between union representatives and the factory wrapped up successfully Tuesday. ...

Management of an English-owned garment factory yesterday refused a request by union officials to meet to negotiate a possible end of a strike that started on Thursday. ...