Labor

Malaysia wants to reach bilateral agreements with Cambodia and other labor-sending countries that would allow foreign maids to keep their passports, limit their work-day to eight hours and give them one day off per week, Malaysian news media reported yesterday. Malaysian Human Resources Minister Datuk Subramaniam ...

Cambodia does not have enough productive or high-quality jobs available and most employment is informal, which will prevent Cambodians from rising out of poverty, the International Labor Organization (ILO) said Monday at a workshop in Phnom Penh. To help solve the issues affecting the labor market, ...

Labour legislation in Cambodia is so weak and so often ignored that half the Kingdom’s children between the ages of seven and 14 participate in the workforce, the world’s largest federation of unions has told the World Trade Organisation General Council in Geneva. Children, women and ...

The Cambodian Embassy in Malaysia returned abused Cambodian maids, including women who were raped by their employers, to work at maid recruitment agencies in that country, a new report by Human Rights Watch claims. The New York-based rights group also said Cambodian police colluded with labor ...

As reports continue to flood in detailing rampant abuse of Cambodian migrant workers abroad, the Cambodian Migrant Workers’ Association (CMWA) said it would be registering with the Ministry of Interior today as the country’s first migrant workers representative organisation, according to its director. “The idea is ...

More than two weeks after a ban on sending maids to Malaysia began, work on a bilateral agreement that would protect Cambodian maids working in Malaysia has not begun, officials said yesterday. Ho Vuthy, deputy director general at the Ministry of Labor’s department of labor, said ...

After years of trying to find suitable staff, the Ministry of Commerce on Friday released a list of 44 arbitrators who will be in charge of running the National Arbitration Center (NAC), a body designed to offer businesses a commercial dispute mechanism alternative to Cambodia’s ...

Amid mounting concerns over labor recruitment agencies’ treatment of migrant workers, new links were discovered yesterday between agencies and the officials that regulate them, as a daughter of a senior Labor Ministry official was found to be running a major recruitment firm. Nhem Chakrya, deputy director ...

Overseas labor recruitment agencies that send maids to Malaysia are planning to lay off about 1,000 staff members as they prepare to close down many pre-departure training centers following a growing scandal around abuses and criminal activity during the recruitment, training and sending of maids. An ...

Experts yesterday urged the Ministry of Labor to extend the latest draft of a forthcoming trade union law to include civil servants, who are currently shut out of the law in contravention of international conventions Rong Chhun, president of both the Cambodian Confederation of Unions and ...

Police said they freed one recruit from a Phnom Penh recruitment agency this weekend and were seeking to prosecute its director, adding that they were doing the same for the director of the SKMM recruitment agency, where 78 recruits were freed last week. The court ...

Thirteen construction workers have filed a complaint against the Banteay Meanchey provincial branch of T&P Co Ltd – the recruitment agency at the center of allegations involving illegal detainment of trainees – officials said yesterday. The workers, who had previously worked illegally as construction workers in ...

The Minister of Labor yesterday defended his ministry’s much-criticized interpretation of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ban on sending maids to Malaysia, after it allowed about 3,000 young women to still be sent abroad despite the serious risk of abuse and exploitation. Minister of Labor Vong Sauth ...

Following repeated reports of abuse and illegal activity, Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday ordered recruitment agencies to indefinitely stop sending Cambodian domestic workers to Malaysia, officials said Friday. Secretary of State for the Labor Ministry Oum Mean said that he had received unofficial information about ...

The Ministry of Labour has been ordered to permanently close the labour recruitment firm T&P following the discovery of more under-age trainees in its Kampong Chhnang centre. The move marks the first time the ministry has shut a labour reruitment firm, and follows intense criticism of ...

Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court on Tuesday gave permission to M&V International Manufacturing garment factory to suspend two Free Trade Union representatives and 13 other workers after they allegedly instigated an illegal protest earlier this month, a court official said Wednesday. Penh Vibol, provincial chief prosecutor, said ...

Cambodia’s education sector needs a complete overhaul in order to reduce unemployment and successfully diversify the economy beyond garment manufacturing, according to a World Bank report released today. The report’s release came after investors and economists said at a trade and investment conference in Phnom Penh ...

MORE than 4,000 workers ended a four-day strike outside the M&V factory in Kampong Chhnang province yesterday after the Arbitration Council intervened, issuing an order for them to return to work. The workers, led by the Free Trade Union of Workers in the Kingdom of ...

UNION officials fired another volley in their battle against a hotel yesterday by announcing that they would file a complaint today with a Siem Reap court, as their protests continued to draw unwanted attention to the tourist town. The Cambodian Tourism and Service Workers Federation complaint ...

Officials said yesterday that the government had suspended a recruitment agency in Kompong Chhnang province suspected of forcibly confining 45 women and that plans were underway to shut it down permanently. Police rescued the women, including 26 girls under the age of 18, who were training ...

The Angkor Village Hotel and Resort is breaking the law by refusing to reinstate 67 sacked workers that the Arbitration Council ruled were unlawfully dismissed, Siem Reap’s deputy governor claimed yesterday. After attending a protest of hotel workers and supporters outside the hotel in Siem Reap ...

Following a raid on a Phnom Penh recruitment agency, military police yesterday detained two people and rescued 22 girls and women aged 13 to 25 who claimed they were being held against their will ahead of being sent to Malaysia to work as maids. Municipal military ...

Job recruitment agencies that send workers overseas often deceive young women through misleading job advertisements by using brokers that have “a position of authority” within the community, according to a new report by the Asia Foundation. According to the report, agencies also inflate migration costs that ...

Zhen Yong Garment Factory Co Ltd has agreed to some of the demands of about 400 workers who went on strike last week, including paying annual bonuses early next month Prum Veasna, deputy of the labor dispute department at the labor ministry, said yesterday that the ...