Labor policy and administration

Former employees of the recently closed Dream Land amusement park in Phnom Penh agreed to severance packages of between $85 and $200 on Tuesday, company officials said.     ...

About 50 former employees of the recently shuttered Dream Land amusement park in Phnom Penh protested outside the park’s grounds on Monday to demand severance pay. ...

Cambodia’s embassy in Thailand has denied allegations that officials from the embassy were extorting Cambodian employers and migrant workers in Thailand by demanding bribes for fake passports and pushing along applications to legalize a person’s working status. ...

As a result of the meeting with the specialist commissions, Minister of Labor Ith Samheng said that nearly 50 percent of the comments given by union leaders, business owners, development partners and the government were used to make changes in the draft union law yesterday. ...

Illegal strikes, the minimum wage and high electricity costs were the subjects discussed during the 13th annual meeting between Cambodia and Japan last week, according to the Council for Development of Cambodia (CDC). ...

Two unionists jailed since February 2 have been released on bail by the Kompong Speu Provincial Court, although they remain charged with incitement and intentional violence in connection with a protest outside the Cerie garment factory, officials said Thursday. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has announced that the government is considering raising family allowances for the wives and children of public servants across the Kingdom. ...

The construction sector created almost twice as many jobs last year as it did in 2014, according to a report from the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction. ...

The National Committee on Combating Human Trafficking released its annual report yesterday, with figures showing an improved effort by authorities since 2014 to crackdown on the trade. ...

Roughly 2,000 workers from the Malaysian-owned Global Apparels Limited garment factory in Phnom Penh went on strike yesterday after the factory announced it would be reducing staff numbers by 500 over the coming months, union representatives said yesterday. ...

About 500 people gathered outside Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison on Tuesday to demand the release of form­er Capitol Tours bus driver Nan Vanna and la­bor activist Ros Si­phay, who were arrested two weeks ago for participating in a demonstration against the company. ...

The Ministry of Labour is eyeing the creation of a draft law that would codify the sometimes-nebulous process that determines the garment industry’s minimum wage, attendees at the ministry’s annual meeting were told last week. ...

The Cambodian Embassy in Kuwait successfully rescued a Cambodian woman working as a maid in Saudi Arabia who complained of abusive working conditions, lack of food and of having pay withheld. Him Srey, a Cham Muslim from Kampong Cham province who went to Saudi Arabia ...

Despite their overwhelmingly female workforce, garment factories in Kompong Speu province fail to adequately address the maternal health and child-care needs of their staff, according to new study set to be released by the French NGO Enfants and Developpment. ...

Officials blamed food poisoning for sparking the mass fainting of about 40 garment workers in a factory in the Svay Rieng border town of Bavet on Monday afternoon. ...

More than 100 workers from Japanese-owned quality control firm Kuwahara, whose office is located in the Cambodiana Hotel, gathered in a park across the street from the hotel yesterday morning to boycott their employer and demand they institute a litany of conditions that were born ...

A boycott of the Capitol Bus Company organised by former drivers and their supporters is picking up steam online after a brutal beatdown took place at a protest last week. ...

Twenty female garment workers at Evergreen Apparel factory in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district fainted yesterday because of toilet fumes funnelled through the ventilation system, though heat stress and heavy workloads were also possible factors. ...

Cambodia and Saudi Arabia on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding to begin work on opening a pipeline for Cambodians to work in the gulf nation, which has been routinely criticised for failing to protect migrant domestic workers from abysmal treatment and slave-like conditions. ...

Eleven opposition activists who have been jailed since 2014 for supposedly participating in an “insurrection” will have their appeal against their conviction heard on March 17, their lawyer said on Friday. ...

A fire burned through 45 hectares of sugarcane plantation belonging to three companies in Svay Rieng province’s Svay Tiep district on Tuesday, with one company representative suspecting that the fire was intentionally set. ...

More than 30 workers fainted at a garment factory in Kandal prov­ince over the past two days after inhaling noxious fumes circulated by a ventilation fan located near the facility’s toilets, an official said.   ...

Consular officials yesterday were working to repatriate a Cambodian maid fleeing what she described as unfair working conditions in Saudi Arabia, even as Cambodia’s minister of labour was en route to seal a long-awaited deal to open a pipeline of workers to the Gulf nation. ...

A bloody scuffle in Phnom Penh on Saturday left scores injured after protesting bus drivers and their supporters were brutally set upon by a rival association armed with sticks, metal bars and hammers. ...