Labor

The manager of Giant Ocean International, a now-defunct recruitment firm notorious for abuse scandals, was sentenced yesterday to 10 years in jail for trafficking hundreds of Cambodian fishermen to work in slave-like conditions overseas. Taiwanese national Lin Yu-shin, who ran the firm, was arrested in May ...

Chea Mony, president of the opposition-aligned Free Trade Union (FTU), said Tuesday that his union, one of the largest in the country, will not be joining other labor groups planning to rally on International Workers’ Day because he has been sick and traveling in the ...

At least three Cambodians who have travelled to work as maids in Singapore since August last year as part of a pilot scheme have complained to worker welfare groups there about employer abuse and poor working conditions, including molestation and the slapping of a worker. In ...

Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) appealed to Labor Minister Ith Samheng, and relevant institutions to immediately stop ongoing protests at Tai Seng and Manhattan Special Economic Zone in Svay Rieng’s Bavet town. Workers led by Mr. Pav Sina, President of Collective Unions of Movement of ...

ANZ’s financing of ruling party senator Ly Yong Phat’s controversial sugar plantation has come under fire once again, this time in an investigation by NGO Oxfam into Australia’s big four banks and their links to rights abuses in developing countries. In a report titled “Banking on ...

Eighteen fired bus drivers protesting for reinstatement at Phnom Penh Sorya Transportation were met yesterday by company staff who staged a counter-protest demanding that the fired drivers stop interrupting their work. The drivers, who claim they were fired earlier this month for trying to form ...

First Sum Tea lost her farm. Then she lost her son. Sum Tea is one of hundreds of farmers who lost her small landholding in 2006 when the Cambodian government granted Phnom Penh Sugar, a company owned by Cambodian tycoon and ruling party senator Ly Yong ...

Garment and footwear industry, Cambodia’s largest income earner, reported a 16 percent surge in exports in the first three months of 2014, the figures of the Ministry of Commerce showed Monday. The Southeast Asian nation exported apparel and footwear products in equivalent to 1.56 billion U.S. ...

Trade unions may have failed to get a stay-at-home strike for higher wages off the ground after the Khmer New Year earlier this month. But a strike for bonus pay is picking up steam in Svay Rieng Province, where some 20,000 garment workers protested at ...

More than 100 Cambodians were deported from Thailand yesterday after Thai security forces conducted operations over the weekend aimed at stemming the flow of illegal immigrants. Net Sary, Cambodia’s consul-general in Thailand’s Sa Kaeo province, said yesterday that 120 Cambodians, including four minors, were deported after ...

Eighteen sacked drivers for the Phnom Penh Sorya Transportation company protested in front of the company’s offices Friday morning calling for their reinstatement and a raise. The drivers say they were fired in mid- and late-April for leading strikes—in which they walked off with the keys ...

The Garment Manufacturers Associations in Cambodia (GMAC) on Sunday urged the government to curb outlawed garment strikes that have occurred this week at Special Economic Zones in eastern Bavet City, which are expected to continue next week. “GMAC is disappointed that the government and local authorities ...

Ath Thorn, the president of the country’s largest independent labor union, said Friday that he has appealed court orders restricting his unionizing activity and is seeking support from international labor organizations as he faces charges of incitement. The Phnom Penh Municipal Court has ordered Mr. Thorn, ...

A would-be tripartite workshop intended to improve the garment sector’s minimum wage setting process closed Friday, with the industry’s most influential player, the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC), boycotting the talks at Phnom Penh Hotel. The two-day workshop would have been the first meeting between ...

Phnom Penh City Hall has refused labor unions and associations to celebrate 128th International Labor Day (May 1) at Freedom Park. The decision was made during a meeting on Thursday between representatives of labor unions, association and Phnom Penh City Hall officials. ...

One the eve of the trial of 23 people arrested during a garment strike in January, their supporters yesterday expressed concern that politics, rather than the facts, may determine the verdict. Nearly four months after their arrests at protests on January 2 and 3 – the ...

Government officials and union representatives met behind closed doors Thursday to start hashing out a better way to set the minimum wage for the country’s all-important but troubled garment sector at a workshop brokered by the International Labor Organization (ILO). But what was supposed to be ...

Union leaders say they expect upwards of 1,000 people to jam the streets around Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday in a show of support for 23 unionists, workers and bystanders who are on trial for their alleged part in violent protests in Pur Senchey ...

Garment factory owners failed to turn up for what was supposed to have been a tripartite meeting with the government and worker unions on Thursday to help break an impasse in negotiations to increase the minimum wage for workers, officials said. The International Labor Organization (ILO) ...

Garment and footwear industry, Cambodia’s largest foreign exchange earner, currently consists of 960 factories, employing some 620,000 workers, labor minister Ith Samheng said Thursday. The sector made a revenue of 5.5 billion U.S. dollars last year, accounting for around 80 percent of the country’s total exports, ...

The appointment of General Sok Phal to head the Interior Ministry’s newly formed department to monitor migrant workers has raised concerns over his close familial connection to a labor recruitment industry fraught with human rights abuses. Gen. Phal’s sister, Ung Seang Rithy, is the owner of ...

Striking Phnom Penh Sorya Transportation bus service workers demonstrated with fired employees outside a company garage in Russey Keo district yesterday and threatened to lead others off the job again if a deal on contracts can’t be brokered by the Ministry of Labour and company ...

Two union leaders were summonsed and questioned by a municipal court prosecutor yesterday over allegations they illegally detained the boss of a packaging factory in Por Sen Chey district’s Choam Chao commune during a strike. According to Phnom Penh Municipal Court deputy prosecutor Ek Chheng Huoth, ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday ordered embattled union leader Ath Thorn to stay away from the SL garment factory and its workers and to avoid any public gatherings that could “damage public order,” drawing a tight circle around one of the country’s most ...