Labor policy and administration

Three members of the Free Trade Union were hospitalized after being beaten by members of a rival union during a protest Wednesday morning at the SH International garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district, union and police officials said. ...

Nine former employees of Beehive radio station protested in Phnom Penh on Wednesday to demand that owner Mam Sonando respect an Arbitration Council ruling that he pay them severance after firing them earlier this year. ...

Negotiations for next year’s minimum wage in Cambodia’s garment and footwear sector are already gearing up, as union leaders prepare to meet this month to discuss what wage they will demand. During the week of June 21, union heads will hold a preliminary consensus-building meeting, said ...

A weekslong strike by more than 2,000 workers from a Phnom Penh factory that supplies global fashion brand H&M ended Wednesday after unions scaled down their original demands and backed down over a condition that workers receive their full salaries for the strike period, representatives ...

Seventeen Vietnamese construction workers were arrested and the passports of 142 Chinese construction workers confiscated when immigration officers raided a building site in Phnom Penh on Tuesday afternoon. ...

Police in Phnom Penh were called up Friday night to order a Chinese-owned garment factory to release a group of employees it had locked inside in a failed attempt to make them work late into the night, officials said Sunday. ...

About 50 striking garment workers representing more than 2,000 employees from M&V International Garment Factory yesterday gathered outside Phnom Penh Municipal Court where they submitted a letter demanding a court order prohibiting their industrial action be scrapped. ...

About 20 representatives for more than 2,000 striking workers—accused by the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia of damaging the industry’s reputation—marched to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday asking it to revoke an injunction ordering them back to work. ...

The National Human Rights Commission of Thailand has accused the country’s Khon Kaen Sugar of “serious human rights violations” at its two Cambodian plantations in a new report that urges the firm to return the land to the hundreds of families forced off their farms—some ...

Human rights activists are calling for more transparency in any potential agreement to send Cambodian workers to Qatar. ...

A group of 38 fishermen returned to Cambodia on Tuesday after being rescued from forced labor in Indonesia. ...

A Cambodian migrant worker was shot dead by a Thai foreman at the construction site where he was working last week in Thailand’s Chachoengsao province, a border official said Sunday. ...

The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia re-elected Van Sou Ieng as chairman—a position he has held for nearly two decades—at its annual general meeting on Saturday but approved a new two-term limit on the two-year post. ...

As 58 Cambodian fishermen rescued from slavery in Indonesia await their travel documents to return home, the intergovernmental body organizing their return is attempting to raise money to pay for their travel because the Cambodian government is not offering any funds for their repatriation. ...

A Cambodian labour union this week sent a letter to the Japanese Embassy, asking for help dealing with reported violence against workers at a Japanese-owned garment factory in Kampong Speu province. ...

The Free Trade Union on Thursday submitted a letter to the Japanese Embassy in Phnom Penh requesting that embassy officials investigate a Japanese-owned garment factory in Kompong Speu province that it claims tried to intimidate a union representative late last year. ...

Phnom Penh City Hall expressed uncertainty yesterday as to whether it would be able to allow a planned 3,000-person labour union rally on May 1, in observation of International Labour Day. ...

More than 40 employees at a South Korean firm in Phnom Penh continued a two-week-old strike Tuesday over their demotions earlier in the month and have started to protest, the workers and company said. ...

The Ministry of Labour has given a recruitment firm 45 days to repay clients who filed a complaint alleging the company collected their money but never delivered promised jobs in Japan. ...

When Roeun Hen would try to take a break from his 20-hour shift trawling Indonesian waters for fish, his Thai captain would pummel him, kicking and punching the 29-year-old until he returned to work. ...

While mental health services are crucial to the recovery process for the Kingdom’s victims of human trafficking, stigma and limited resources remain a barrier in the provision of and access to those services, according to a new study published yesterday. The research, published in the International ...

At least 58 Cambodians were among the more than 300 enslaved fishermen recently rescued from a remote island in Indonesia’s Maluku province, an intergovernmental migration body said Tuesday. ...

Their ranks are small but growing, and they want their government to join an international labor treaty. “If we organize, we can help each other,” says a 25-year-old housekeeper who started working when she was 10 and earns $75 a month. ...

Nineteen Cambodian men were repatriated Sunday morning after being rescued by Indonesian authorities from slavery on Thai fishing boats, according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong. ...