News
Wide Gap Hampers Cambodian Wage Talks
A higher minimum salary for Cambodia’s garment and footwear worker is still not within sight after talks broke down Tuesday between unions representing the workers and their employers, officials said. The garment and footwear workers unions proposed to nearly double the current minimum monthly wage of ...
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/wages-02262013140215.html
Better Factories Cambodia Slammed by Stanford Researchers
The International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Better Factories Cambodia program (BFC) must employ more transparency in their monitoring of Cambodia’s factories in order to effectively bring change to the country’s working and wage conditions, a report launched yesterday says. According to “Monitoring in the Dark” a ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/better-factories-cambodia-slammed-by-stanford-researchers-11011/
Government Tells Unions to Agree on Minimum Wage Demands
The government on Monday requested that manufacturers look at raising the minimum wage for garment workers, but only after divided trade unions agree on what that wage should be. “After discussions, those present at the meeting agree in principle to discuss raising the minimum wage ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/government-tells-unions-to-agree-on-minimum-wage-demands-8193/
Thai factory accused of abuses
Cambodian migrant workers at a tuna processing company in Thailand have had their passports confiscated by their employers and are effectively trapped in substandard work conditions, research released yesterday revealed. Non-profit research organisation Finnwatch said it had found a number of “problems” with working conditions at ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013012260908/National/thai-factory-accused-of-abuses.html
Labor Dispute Cases Rise in Garment, Footwear Industry
The Arbitration Council heard about 230 collective labor disputes in the garment and footwear industry involving approximately 98,000 workers in 2012, a 38 percent increase from 2011, which saw 161 cases handled, according to the council. Y Samphy, training and communications manager for the council’s Arbitration ...
Regional Workers Need More Protection, Advocate Says
With Thailand threatening to oust undocumented workers, Asean must do more as a region to protect its migrant workers, a leading rights advocate says. More and more workers are crossing the borders between Asean countries, and the region looking to lower trade barriers, so workers need ...
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/regional-workers-need-more-protection-advocate-says/1574026.html
Cambodia's Garment Workers Earn Additional Wage
Cambodia’s garment workers will earn 10 US dollar additional wage from September 1, the statement from the advisory committee of labor said this week. The announcement was made after the meeting between union leaders, employers and minister of labor Vong Suth on July 11. “450,000 of 600,000 workers from 700 garment and shoe factories will get this ...
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
Ministry, factories strike deal
About 600,000 workers in the lucrative garment and footwear industries, roughly 95 per cent of the sector’s work force, will soon take home an extra US$10 a month, the Ministry of Labour said yesterday. Barely an hour after a protest involving garment workers at the capital’s ...
Abused maid wins case
An abused Cambodian maid working in Malaysia has had her day in court – and won. Men Chan Veasna is the first Cambodian maid to successfully sue her employers in the Malaysian courts, rights groups said yesterday, calling the win a landmark victory for maids struggling ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012070357171/National-news/abused-maid-wins.html
Job Seekers Flock to Weekend Career Forum
Employers and job seekers traded resumes for business cards by the thousands yesterday in Phnom Penh for the final day of the weekend-long 8th annual Career Forum on Koh Pich. A total of around 15,000 people attended the forum sponsored by the French Chamber of Commerce, ...
Maid’s Death Believed Linked to Abuse
A Cambodian maid who recently returned home from work in Malaysia fell ill and died over the weekend, highlighting ongoing concerns over the treatment of impoverished Southeast Asian women who seek work abroad but are often abused by their employers. Kuy Lyda, 17, died at a ...
Sok Serey
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/maid-06252012155226.html
Gov't Requires Bus Companies To Submit Driver Information
In response to a spate of deadly bus crashes in the country, the government has ordered all bus companies to provide authorities with detailed histories of all their drivers, an official at the Ministry of Public Works and Transport said yesterday. Peou Maly, deputy director-general at the ministry’s transportation department, ...
Workers left in limbo on union law
Almost six months after the latest draft of the proposed trade-union law was sent to the Council of Ministers for approval, employers, unions and workers’ rights groups are left asking the same question: What’s happened to it? Confusion over the status of the landmark law, which ...
Garment sector peace sought
Prime Minister Hun Sen has called on unions, employers and the Ministry of Labour to take a collaborative approach to stamping out violent protests in the garment industry, a unionist said yesterday. During a Saturday conference involving 4,000 people from more than 60 union groups, Hun ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012043055870/National-news/garment-sector-peace-sought.html
Strikes break out in wake of wage policy
Two strikes have broken out at large processing companies in the past week as employers respond to the government’s minimum wage policy with what workers say are cutbacks in conditions. Almost all the 800 Cambodian workers who staged industrial action at a seafood company in Songkhla ...
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/288647/strikes-break-out-in-wake-of-wage-policy
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 ...