News
Cambodia factories snub workers arrested in January strikes
While the smoke has long cleared on January’s violent garment strikes, for many of the 23 workers and unionists arrested and tried on charges widely considered to be baseless, the ordeal is far from over. Nine months after security forces used deadly violence to end strikes ...
Alice Cuddy, Chhay Channyda & Mom Kunthear
http://www.ucanews.com/news/cambodia-factories-snub-workers-arrested-in-january-strikes/72213
Court places more restrictions on union leader
Ath Thorn, the head of the country’s largest independent union, was placed yesterday under judicial supervision by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court a day after he joined demonstrations calling for a $177 monthly minimum wage for garment workers. Mr. Thorn, president of the Coalition of Cambodian ...
Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/court-places-more-restrictions-on-union-leader-68225/
Delay on maid deal: ministry
The Ministry of Labour plans to delay signing off on a controversial agreement to reopen a pipeline of Cambodian maids to Malaysia until a deal is reached on a second agreement regarding other migrant workers, a ministry official said yesterday. Labour Ministry spokesman Heng Sour told ...
Alice Cuddy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/delay-maid-deal-ministry
In China, nowhere to run
In yet another case of Cambodian women facing abuse in China, a 19-year-old told the Post yesterday that she has taken to living on the streets after the consulate in Shanghai refused to pay for her repatriation. Kim Sophea*, who claims she has been forced into marriage in ...
Sen David and Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/china-nowhere-run
Citizen Journalists Move To Establish Wider Network
Around 80 citizen journalists from around Cambodia held a meeting in Phnom Penh Wednesday, in a first-ever networking event for a new kind of reporter in the country. Professional journalists and other media professionals joined the event, sponsored by the Cambodian Center for Independent Media and ...
Suy Heimkhemra
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/citizen-journalists-move-to-establish-wider-network/2422037.html
Visa ‘loophole’ no friend to maids: NGOs
Cambodia’s embassy in Kuala Lumpur has played a key role in pressuring domestic workers to stay in the country despite fears for their welfare, rights groups have said. While a moratorium was placed on sending domestic workers to Malaysia in 2011 amid mounting concerns over abuses, ...
Alice Cuddy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/visa-%E2%80%98loophole%E2%80%99-no-friend-maids-ngos
Getting on the same page
In what is shaping up to be the first of several pivotal garment wage talks, unions are to meet for the first time today to discuss the amount they should request for next year’s minimum wage – but labour leaders and observers say coming to ...
Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/getting-same-page
Life as a brokered wife
Barely able to make enough money to survive in her hometown, Sok Chenda* picked up her passport and a few belongings last year and headed to the provincial capital of Kampong Cham. It was a journey she would regret. The eldest daughter among five siblings, Chenda, 28, ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/life-brokered-wife
Citizen-led media gets new blog
In a bid to highlight abuses in the workplace, an NGO today will officially launch a website and hotline, allowing people to post stories as citizen journalists. The Community Legal Education Center (CLEC) will hold a ceremony this morning promoting their new project, Voice of the ...
Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/citizen-led-media-gets-new-blog
Arbitration’s cost and value
The Arbitration Council Foundation, credited with helping resolve about 1,700 industrial disputes, has reached verbal agreement with a Swedish aid agency to receive funding until the end of 2016, a spokesman said yesterday. But members of the labour-dispute resolution body desire a more permanent solution that ...
Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/arbitration%E2%80%99s-cost-and-value
GMAC to hold class on firing
Amid complaints from union and labour rights officials of illegal firings over the years, Cambodia’s garment factory association is holding a course on the termination process in Preah Sihanouk province today. ...
Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/gmac-hold-class-firing
Migrants flee Thai instability
Thousands of Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand are rushing back across the border, voluntarily repatriating themselves in the face of increasingly hostile rhetoric towards undocumented labourers. In the wake of Thailand’s coup d’état last month, army chief General Prayuth Chan-o-Cha urged better regulation of the workforce ...
Cheang Sokha and Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/migrants-flee-thai-instability
Cambodia’s ‘Better Factories’ Are Getting A Lot Worse
Three months pregnant at the time, Sam Ath doesn’t remember collapsing two months ago at the crowded, muggy garment factory where she works at the southwestern edge of the Cambodian capital. The 30-year-old woke up in a hospital bed, only to be told that she had ...
Geoffrey Cain
http://www.mintpressnews.com/cambodias-better-factories-are-getting-a-lot-worse/191790/
Union leaders evade arrest, co-workers say
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 ...
Mom Kunthear and Alice Cuddy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/union-leaders-evade-arrest-co-workers-say-0
Again, abuse in China alleged
Four parents in Kampong Cham province have filed complaints with provincial police alleging that their daughters are being sexually abused by their husbands in China, officers said yesterday. Thol Meng, deputy bureau chief of the provincial anti-human trafficking department, said a total of 10 concerned mothers ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/again-abuse-china-alleged
Trial continues: Workers to gather at court house
Observers expect the trial of 23 people arrested during early January strike demonstrations will not be completed today, due to the number of witnesses who may testify. “I think the trial would take more than the time [available today],” Ham Samrith, senior lawyer for the Community ...
Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/trial-continues-workers-gather-court-house
Concerns ahead of trial for 23
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 ...
Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/concerns-ahead-trial-23
Trial for 23 finally under way
The long-awaited trial of the 23 men arrested during strike demonstrations in early January began this morning at 8 am at Phnom Penh Municipal Court and is proceeding into the afternoon. Before the trial began, police had already blocked off the street in front of the ...
Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/trial-23-finally-under-way
Iffy factory supplying LA’s finest
A Phnom Penh-based factory supplying uniforms for police officers and firefighters in the US city of Los Angeles continues to break Cambodian labour laws, a report to be publicly released today says. Kin Tai Garment factory, a supplier to 5.11 Tactical – which sells the uniforms ...
Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/iffy-factory-supplying-la%E2%80%99s-finest
Factory shutters in shame
The Zongtex Garment factory off Phnom Penh’s Russian Boulevard looks like a nondescript residential compound, hidden down a dead-end road. There are no signs suggesting that it supplied to some of the world’s leading high street names – and the US military. Taiwanese-owned Zongtex Garment Manufacturing ...
Daniel Pye, Alice Cuddy and Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/factory-shutters-shame
Brands ‘failing their workers’
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 ...
Alice Cuddy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/brands-%E2%80%98failing-their-workers%E2%80%99
Unions to lead holiday strike
When is a strike not a strike? That’s a question being asked after union leaders yesterday announced they will inform garment factory owners that their members want to use annual leave days to wage their stay-at-home strike the week after Khmer New Year. The leaders of eight ...
Mom Kunthear and Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/unions-lead-holiday-strike
True refuge still elusive for refugees
It took three illegal border crossings, several bribed officials and six months in an overcrowded detention centre before Mohammed Ibrahim* finally arrived in Cambodia. Four years later, the ethnic Rohingya, a victim of violence and oppression in strife-torn Rakhine state in Myanmar’s west, is one of ...
Amelia Woodside
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/true-refuge-still-elusive-refugees
Unions plan forum
The leaders of 18 unions and union confederations this week will invite ruling and opposition party members to take part in a public forum where labour relations issues will be discussed. Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions (CCU), yesterday said the letters have ...
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/unions-plan-forum