Labor policy and administration

A villager involved in a long-running land dispute in Kompong Chhnang province with the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem has accused his commune police chief of discrimination after he was refused a character statement he needed to apply for a garment factory ...

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 ...

Takeo Provincial Court released eight unionists yesterday after they were questioned for several hours. The unionists from the Coalition of Cambodia Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union (C.CAWDU) were arrested on May 23 after they led workers to protest at JSD Textile (Cambodia) to demand better work condition. ...

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 ...

Eight members of Cambodia’s largest independent union were released on bail yesterday after being tried at Takeo Provincial Court over their alleged involvement in a factory protest late last week, officials said. Defence lawyer Kim Socheat said the members of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ ...

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 ...

Petrol station workers who were back on strike on Friday returned to work yesterday as they prepare to file a complaint to the Ministry of Labour against US-owned Caltex over alleged rights abuse. Yoeun Reth, one of 20 Caltex workers striking on Friday, said yesterday that ...

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 ...

Employees of Caltex petrol stations in Phnom Penh are returning to work today after management offered to raise salaries by $20 a month and not withhold pay for time missed during the strike, which started earlier this month. ...

Taking the stand for the first time since his arrest at a garment worker protest that turned violent in early January, union leader Vorn Pao told the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday that he went to the protest only to make peace and was ...

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 ...

After Caltex managers allegedly reneged on an agreement to pay workers a $20 bonus to suspend a strike for two months, employees say they would only return if the deal is in writing. In a Friday meeting, the Cambodian Food and Service Workers Federation agreed with ...

Teachers in Oddar Meanchey province, who last week accused dis­trict education officials of stealing their salaries, were on Monday threatened with expulsion for talking to the media, a teachers union said. The Anlong Veng district education director summoned about 15 teachers and school officials to the ...

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 ...

In his fight for workers’ rights, Sar Mora has learned to be stubborn. The union leader behind the closure of Caltex gas stations across Phnom Penh, Mr. Mora’s members remained on strike Sunday despite an apparent agreement on Friday for workers to return to their stations. “We ...

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 ...

After a three-year moratorium on sending maids overseas—sparked by a spate of serious abuses by recruiters and employers—momentum is building to once again send hundreds of thousands of Cambodian women to work overseas as domestic servants. Since Prime Minister Hun Sen shut down the industry in ...

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 ...

A small group representing striking Caltex gas station workers delivered a petition to the US Embassy on Thursday, asking for help as they seek an increase in monthly wages. Hundreds of Caltex workers have been on strike since Monday, joining garment factory workers in calls for ...

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 ...

A technical error caused 57 teachers in Oddar Meanchey province to be shortchanged when collecting overtime salaries, said an education official who promised the problem will be rectified by the end of May. A teachers’ union on Monday asked the Ministry of Education to address some ...