Garments and textiles

A Ministry of Labour official yesterday vowed to go after any of his “corrupt” colleagues that deal with the garment and footwear sector, and urged workers to file complaints about substandard working conditions. ...

Before he was arrested in January, Vorn Pov and the union he created were not widely known outside of activist circles. But when he emerged from Phnom Penh’s CC1 prison on Friday, he walked away as one of the highest-profile unionists in the country, and a ...

Being placed on consecutive short-term contracts in Cambodia’s predominantly female-staffed garment sector is forcing many women to choose between a family and a factory job, unionists and rights groups said yesterday. Ken Chenglang, acting president of the National Independent Federation Textile Union of Cambodia, said many ...

More than 600 workers have fainted on factory floors so far this year, compared with about 800 such incidents over the whole of 2013, a Labour Ministry official said yesterday. Pok Vanthat, deputy director of the ministry’s labour health department and head of a committee that ...

Police yesterday morning blocked more than 1,000 garment workers as they tried to march from their Por Sen Chey district factory to the Ministry of Labour to plead for intervention. Management at the Ocean Garment factory informed staff on May 24 that it would close for ...

The South Korean ambassador to Cambodia, Kim Han-soo, on Monday denied having asked the Labor Ministry to stop a strike at a South Korean-owned garment factory last week, but said the dispute has put a $40 million investment from the parent company on hold. On Sunday, ...

Three months pregnant at the time, Sam Ath doesn’t remember collapsing two months ago at the crowded, muggy garment factory where she works at the southwestern edge of the Cambodian capital. The 30-year-old woke up in a hospital bed, only to be told that she had ...

As several hundred garment workers from the SL Garment factory pelted police with rocks during a protest near the Stung Meanchey pagoda in November, Men Sok Sambath, a 14-year-old scrap collector, decided to join the crowd. “I saw other people throwing rocks at the [police] truck, ...

Grand Twins International (Cambodia) Co. Ltd., a Phnom Penh-based manufacturer of clothes for U.S. athletic brands, has again delayed its listing on the Cambodia Securities Exchange (CSX), officials said Wednesday. The company was expected to list Thursday, but technical problems prevented it from doing so, according ...

About 1,000 workers protested outside Ocean Garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district on Wednesday to demand compensation for being out of work while the factory suspends its operations for a month due to flagging demand from buyers, a union leader said. Workers have been ...

Representatives from some of the world’s largest fashion brands and the leader of one of the world’s biggest union organizations met this week with Cambodian officials and local clothing manufacturers to demand better treatment and improve workplace safety for the country’s estimated 600,000 garment workers. Garment ...

A major international union wants Cambodian garment workers and factory managers to return to negotiations, following meetings between international companies and officials. The IndustriALL Global Union said Tuesday that management should seriously consider a minimum wage of $160 per month, after international buyers such as Levis ...

Cambodian officials, led by Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Keat Chhon, on Monday met with a 18-member delegation representing global brands and trade unions to discuss garment worker rights and wages. It was the second round of talks between Cambodian government officials and representatives of major brands ...

About 150 garment workers turned out to the Phnom Penh of­fices of the United Sisterhood Alliance NGO on Sunday to watch a politically charged fashion show entitled “Beautiful Clothes, Ugly Reality.” Aimed to highlight “the income gap between Cambodian garment workers and the selected CEOs of ...

The Takeo Provincial Court charged eight union representatives with incitement Sunday for taking part in a garment factory strike, bringing to 17 the number of unionists charged this month alone. The latest in the spate of recent arrests came just ahead of today’s high-level meeting between ...

Two union leaders narrowly escaped arrest yesterday morning when employees on strike at a Phnom Penh garment factory forced their release from police and security guards, fellow union officials said. Seang Sambath, president of the Worker Friendship Union Federation, said WFUF vice president Mao Vannak and ...

During his second day under questioning on charges of inciting violence and property damage at a January 2 protest, union leader Vorn Pao was presented with photographs showing his tuk-tuk packed with rocks, and a video of him calling on low-ranking police to turn their ...

Muon Sokmean, a 29-year-old garment worker, scrambled off Veng Sreng Street on January 3 with military police in violent pursuit, brandishing their batons. What had been a militant protest for a $160 minimum wage in the garment sector—with many protesters lobbing rocks and crude Molotov cocktails ...

The trial of 23 men arrested at violent demonstrations in early January continues at 8am today, and unionists are planning on rallying outside the court in a show of solidarity. About 100 union members will join staff from the Cambodian Labour Confederation and the Coalition of ...

The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) has defended its decision not to pay a survivors’ pension to the family of a teenager killed in a ceiling collapse at the Wing Star Shoes factory in Kampong Speu province last May. On the anniversary of the collapse on ...

Two factories in the Manhattan Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Svay Rieng province’s Bavet town have fired more than 40 workers since thousands-strong strikes ended early this month, unions say. Terminations at Best Way and Fico garment factories were bosses’ way of exacting revenge for the ...

When an overloaded and illegally built storage level at the Wing Star Shoes factory in Kampong Speu province collapsed last May 16, officials went into damage control, promising to compensate victims using a relatively new state fund. But one year after teenager Kim Dany and co-worker ...

The head of a construction company working to upgrade Phnom Penh’s dusty, potholed Veng Sreng Street said Thursday that the project would take twice as long to complete as expected. In November, Phnom Penh governor Pa Socheatvong announced that a 6.5 km strip of the road—which ...

Almost 850 demonstrations or strikes have occurred nationwide since the year began – a seemingly anarchic average of more than six a day, the General Commissariat of National Police announced this week, blaming politicians, NGOs and trade unions for helping to incite demonstrators and “complicating ...