Garments and textiles

Garment workers’ calls for a $160 minimum wage are justified and should be honored, a new report by an international team of academics and labor experts has found. The authors—including a team from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, South Korean and ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday that the opposition-aligned unions, inciting garment workers to stage strikes for higher wages, must take responsibilities for any future closures of factories. “The government has worked very hard to attract investors to build factories and has urged manufacturers to ...

A coalition of 18 labor unions and associations is today set to begin the first phase of a nationwide labor strike in the garment sector by calling on workers in about 100 factories to boycott working overtime, according to union leaders. Despite efforts by the government ...

Trade Union Workers Federation of Progress Democracy (TUWFPD) on Sunday appealed to workers in garment sector not to attend strikes called by other union leaders, saying that the strikes would adversely affect the workers themselves. The strikes are scheduled for March 12. ...

Some 800 workers from a Taiwanese-owned Yu Da Garment Industry (Cambodia) Co., Ltd protested Saturday to demand better working condition and pay. ...

The high-ranking government officials and global clothing brand representatives who took part in a meeting in Phnom Penh on Wednesday both raised concern​s​ about the media coverage of last month’s lethal repression of a nationwide strike by garment workers and its aftermath. The meeting was called ...

Trade between Cambodia and China’s Hong Kong increased by 19 percent in 2013, thanks to good ties between China and Cambodia, Raymond Yip, assistant executive director of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, said here Friday. The total trade value between Cambodia and Hong Kong amounted ...

While more Japanese companies are flocking to Cambodia for investments in recent years, they are more diversified, ranging from restaurants to manufacturing industries and electronics. Yoshihito Katsuo, first secretary in charge of trade at the Japanese embassy in Phnom Penh, told Kyodo News on Friday that ...

Just over a month after a brutal police crackdown on striking Cambodian garment workers left at least five people dead, the country’s unions are calling for another strike in March, increasing the likelihood of further violence. At issue is the still-unresolved question of the workers’ minimum monthly wage. Roughly 700,000 ...

Cambodian Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Keat Chhon on Wednesday met with a delegation representing 30 global brands and global trade unions to discuss the current situation of garment sector. The delegation comprised 27 global brands including H&M Hennes & Mauritz AB, Gap Inc., Adidas, Puma, Levi ...

Since Minister of Labour Ith Sam Heng announced in late-December that the ministry would hike the minimum monthly wage for the garment sector to $100, Nuch Sdoeung has, at times, questioned if he could even afford beef. The wage boost from the prior minimum wage ...

The number of workers fainting in garment and footwear factories halved in 2013, a National Social Security Fund (NSSF) report released last week claims – a decline the Ministry of Labour puts down to increased education. The NSSF, which is part of the ministry, recorded 823 ...

Cambodia’s nine opposition-aligned trade unions warned on Wednesday that they will lead a large-scale strike in eight days from March 12 if their demands are not met, reports Vietnam News Agency (VNA). The unions have demanded that the court free 21 detained protesters and the government ...

After the Court of Appeal denied bail to 21 jailed protesters on Tuesday, 16 labor unions and associations announced Wednesday that they will retaliate by calling a nationwide labor strike in the middle of March. The unions, which mainly represent workers in the garment industry, said ...

Workers from Galey & Lord factory producing jeans went on strike Wednesday for second days after local authorities failed to find solution for them. Some 1,000 workers have been on strike since yesterday to demand the Cambodian administration chief Sok Kong be ousted from the factory ...

The Labor Ministry on Tuesday defended its failure to act on the results of its own study, which in November found that the minimum livable wage for garment factory workers is between $157 and $177. In its annual report, the ministry listed its wage study, carried ...

Sixteen unions threatened Monday to organize a nationwide strike if the 21 activists and protesters jailed following garment industry protests on January 2 and 3 are not released on bail Tuesday. The unions also called for charges against the 21 prisoners, 16 of whom began a ...

Labour Minister Ith Sam Heng and ministry spokesman Heng Sour yesterday accused unions and the opposition of derailing the government’s efforts at minimum wage reform by striking and stirring up violence for their own political gain. “The government has set up a committee to study the ...

A Victorian MP born in Cambodia says Australia should put pressure on the country of his birth over a crackdown on protesting garment workers which left five people dead. Hong Lim, the Member for Clayton, says he was in Cambodia earlier this month, when five protesting ...

In the weeks that 17-year-old garment worker Yon Chea languished in prison, he spent hours staring out of the window at a concrete wall, certain that he would never see his home or his family again. The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday morning granted ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday morning granted bail to two of the 23 union activists and protesters jailed following the lethal suppression of garment worker strikes by military police on January 3. Municipal court presiding Judge Leang Samnatt held an unscheduled hearing on Friday ...

The Government already issued a Decision to require the employers to increase the minimum wage for the factory workers to USD 100 per month, starting from February 2014, said a government official. Vong Savann, a senior official of the Labor Ministry added that the Decision was ...

The father of a 16-year-old boy who went missing during last month’s labor protest crackdowns says he now presumes his son dead. The boy, Khim Sophat, was caught up in demonstrations at the Canadia Industrial Zone in early January. He was not listed among the four ...

An employers and businesses federation that took out paid newspaper advertisements claiming Cambodia’s workers have no fundamental right to strike has hit back at the International Labour Organization (ILO), asking it to retract comments it made in response to the ads. Last week, the Cambodian Federation ...