News
Cambodia: A rising star with a falling reputation?
Cambodia’s reputation as a standard-bearer for apparel workers’ rights is wearing thin – and yet the country is a rising star when it comes to attracting foreign investment and increasing exports. There are many reasons to deter brands and retailers from sourcing clothing in Cambodia. The Kingdom ...
http://www.just-style.com/analysis/a-rising-star-with-a-falling-reputation_id117944.aspx
Plantation manager aims to be top oud oil producer
Asia Forestry Management, an integrated plantation-management company with a focus on cultivating Aquilaria crassna, aims to become Thailand’s biggest producer of oud oil this year and Southeast Asia’s in five years. The company’s plant in Trat province will be expanded to produce 280 kilograms of ...
Pilot scheme plans to send maids to Singapore
Four hundred Cambodian women could be sent to Singapore as soon as the middle of this year to work as maids under a pilot scheme by the governments of Cambodia and Singapore. The Post has obtained an internal circular the Singapore Ministry of Manpower sent to ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013020461152/National/maids-heading-to-singapore.html
Ministry Lists Fees to Help Firms Avoid Graft Claims
The government has publicly issued lists showing the costs of fees that businesses must pay to authorities for various services, in an effort to help companies avoid making informal payments made illegal by the anticorruption law. The lists were drafted during the past year after Cambodia ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ministry-lists-fees-to-help-firms-avoid-graft-claims-8434/
Unions urge contract action
Unions will urge the Labour Advisory Committee (LAC) to crack down on employers using fixed-term contracts to threaten workers, they said yesterday. ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012071757462/National-news/unions-urge-contract-action.html
Hun Sen Denies Breeching Ban on Land Concessions
Prime Minister Hun Sen has denied media reports he violated his own ban on economic land concessions, saying he only signed contracts that had been agreed upon prior to his decision. Local media have reported in recent days Hun Sen’s signature on multiple land concessions ...
Maids’ families seek answers
The families of six maids from Kampong Chhnang province who left to work in Malaysia have filed complaints with human rights group Adhoc after losing contact with the women for more than two years, rights workers said yesterday. Soum Chankea, Adhoc’s provincial co-ordinator, said the complaints ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012061456795/National-news/maids-families-seek-answers.html
Union out of loop in MoU negotiations
The garment industry could be close to renewing an industrial relations memorandum of understanding, but an independent union believes it is being edged out of negotiations because it opposes the use of short-term and fixed-duration contracts. Ath Thorn, president of the Cambodian Labour Confederation, said yesterday ...
Unions cry foul on temp contracts
Union leaders gathered in the capital yesterday to discuss strategies to curb the garment industry’s widespread use of temporary contracts for hiring workers, saying employers were using them to discourage unions and ensure their workforce remained docile and easy to exploit. They also accused employers of ...
Arbitration council orders an end to strike
The Arbitration Council has ordered more than 700 workers at the Wei Xin garment factory to end a week-long strike they have staged in protest against a spate of issues they have with the company over contracts and payment. A decision handed down on Saturday by ...
Workers face contract woes
The use of short-term contracts by employers in the Kingdom’s garment industry is threatening workers’ rights and could lead to decreased productivity in the sector, researchers said at a meeting yesterday. Following the release of a report by Yale Law School last week based on ...
World Bank fund halt irks officials
THE government expressed disappointment yesterday with the World Bank’s announcement that it had halted new country loans due to the ongoing land dispute at Boeung Kak lake in Phnom Penh and vowed to raise the issue with the bank’s executive board. “We are very dissatisfied ...
Fixed-Duration Contracts Threaten Garment Industry
Cambodia’s garment sector is in danger of losing its reputation for adherence to international labor standards because of the widespread use of “abusive temporary labor contracts,” according to a report released by Yale Law School on Wednesday. “Cambodian garment manufacturers have adopted the practice of ...
Angkor Beer Promoters Protest for More Overtime Pay
Angkor Beer promoters held a protest outside of Cambrew Ltd in Phnom Penh in order to receive more overtime pay on the weekends, following an Arbitration Council order that the company pay each employee $2 more and Angkor Beer’s failure to do so. The 30 ...