Labor

Following the mass fainting of hundreds of workers at garment factories last week, an official at the Ministry of Labour has raised concerns over the control of toxic chemicals. Leng Tong, director of the Labour Ministry’s occupational health and safety department, said factories should be providing ...

The World Bank upwardly revised Monday its GDP growth forecast for Cambodia this year to 7.2 percent, up from its October projection of 7.0 percent. In explaining the higher forecast, the bank’s East Asia and Pacific Economic Update pointed to “the expectation of renewed confidence and ...

In a rare moment of honesty a Cambodian official has admitted his doubts about his country’s ability to meet regional expectations in time for the launch of the much vaunted ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by the end of 2015. “If you talk about short-term: Yes, we ...

Police in Svay Rieng province yesterday afternoon arrested a union worker who was delivering flyers supporting a stay-at-home strike scheduled to begin after Khmer New Year. While delivering about 1,100 fliers to union members at Full Fortune Knitting, Kem Chamroeun, a 25-year-old Collective Union of Movement ...

The building that housed USA Fully Field Garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district stands empty now. The grounds are littered with garbage and boxes full of dusty brand labels that were stitched onto clothes by almost 400 workers before the factory owner fled in ...

Facing public pressure from major garment brands and labor unions, the Ministry of Labor and the International Labor Organization (ILO) will cooperate in the coming months to reform the current system of setting the minimum wage in the garment sector. The reform process will begin with ...

Labor union leader expressed pleasure and welcomed the study of minimum wage for footwear and garment factory workers. However, he said that the workers will hold protest after the New Year. ...

More than 100 workers of Shenzhou garment factory in Phnom Penh fainted Thursday, one day after a similar mass fainting at the same factory. The first workers fainted at about 8 a.m., setting off a chain reaction that sent the entire workforce running from the factory ...

More than 200 Cambodian garment workers have been hospitalized after episodes of mass fainting at three factories this week, highlighting problems within an industry that is critical to the kingdom’s fledgling economy. The plants all make clothes for brands such as sportswear giants Puma SE and Adidas. Both ...

Nearly 100 garment workers employed by the New Wide garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district have fainted since Tuesday evening after company representatives’ allegedly sprayed insecticide throughout the factory, a local official and a worker said. ...

Police in Preah Vihear province say they have uncovered more evidence of child labor on a Chinese-owned sugarcane plantation and will send the case to court if further investigation confirms their preliminary findings. A former employee of the Lan Feng plantation filed a complaint last month ...

A Taiwanese woman and five associates charged with trafficking Cambodians to work in slave-like conditions on fishing boats off the coast of Africa had their case heard by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday. Lin Yu Shin, the 54-year-old owner of the now defunct Giant ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday questioned three senior officials from the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union (CCAWDU) who stand accused of embezzling $92,929. Speaking after questioning under the court’s deputy prosecutor Ek Chheng Huot, union president Ath Thorn denied siphoning off the ...

Garment worker unions have tangled with factory owners over the unions’ plan to use the coming Khmer New Year holiday to launch a nationwide strike. A coalition of eight unions will send a letter today to the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) stating that workers ...

The Ministry of Labour has announced that factory managers must allow employees three days off for Khmer New Year, even as some union leaders encourage workers to extend that time. In a letter to factory owners dated March 25, Labour Minister Ith Sam Heng reminds owners ...

Opposition lawmaker-elect Mu Sochua and five CNRP youth supporters were ejected Tuesday from Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park after they gathered to film a video for a foundation named after Free Trade Union founder Chea Vichea, who was assassinated in 2004. “We did not come to ...

The Asian Development Bank on Tuesday said it expects Cambodia’s economic growth to slow slightly in 2014. In its annual “Asian Development Outlook,” the bank said it expects to see a drop in the rate from about 7.2 percent last year to 7 percent this year ...

Workplace deaths shot up more than 60 per cent last year when compared with 2012, while injuries and payouts to those injured also saw dramatic increases, according to data released yesterday by the National Social Security Fund (NSSF). Speaking during a conference at the Ministry of ...

The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) on Monday launched an initiative to provide health insurance to the nation’s workforce, a plan that the country’s largest employers’ associations said was premature. NSSF director Ouk Samvithya said that by the middle of this year, enterprises in the country ...

Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday summonsed three senior leaders of Cambodia’s largest independent garment union for questioning over claims they embezzled money meant to be paid to workers in compensation following an industrial dispute, a court official has said. ...

A lawyer representing three of the 23 people arrested during garment strike clashes on January 2 and 3 hopes the capital’s court will drop charges against her clients when it hears their case on April 18, she said yesterday. ...

European mega-brands are not doing enough to ensure that the Cambodian workers who make their products receive a basic living wage, according to a report released today. Tailored Wages, an analysis of 50 of Europe’s biggest clothing brands, found that many major high-street chains are doing ...

Cambodia is not prepared to join Asean’s single regional market and production base next year, a Labor Ministry official said Friday. Next year, the 10 nations of Asean are to create the Asean Economic Community (AEC). Within this community, labor is to flow freely and import ...

The Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM) is hoping to turn a select group of garment workers into muckrakers by offering a journalism program through the Voice of Democracy news outlet. Free of charge, the course will last until October and have a firm focus on ...