News

Cambodia’s garment industry is experiencing a worrying rise in fire safety violations as factories struggle to cope with a sharp increase in the number of orders they are receiving, the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Better Factories Cambodia program (BFC) said in a report on Thursday. The ...

The Ministry of Labor on Sunday launched an educational campaign aimed at preventing further mass faintings in garment factories, a ministry official said yesterday. Meng Hong, director of the ministry’s inspection and legal affairs department, said that the campaign would target more than 30,000 garment workers ...

Education garment workers and their bosses on how to avoiding fainting is the latest strategy the Ministry of Labor is using to address a problem that has plagued the industry in the past two years, a ministry official said yesterday. Labor Ministry Secretary of State Oum Mean said he ...

Most mornings, garment worker Vicheka buys food from the street vendors outside her factory in Kampong Chhnang province. The beef and pork dishes, she says, have a tendency to give workers a stomach ache – a reputation forged long before Vicheka and her co-workers at ...

In a year in which more than a thousand Cambodian garment factory workers have fainted on the job, activists across Europe are demonstrating for higher wages and better working conditions in the Kingdom’s factories. Throughout the past week, demonstrators mimicked faintings by collapsing on the floors ...

Dozens of human-rights activists are staging flash “faint-ins” at high-street retailers across Europe to illustrate the high incidence of mass fainting in Cambodia’s apparel factories. Protestors from the Clean Clothes Campaign, an alliance of organizations in 15 European countries dedicated to improving working conditions in ...

More than 30 garment workers fainted at H&L Apparel in Pur Senchey district’s Kakab commune, management at the factory said. “There were 32 workers who fainted, one of the was male, and we too them to Preak Kossomak Hospital yesterday afternoon,” factory administrator Phen Bora said. Mr. Bora ...

Almost 150 garment factory workers from two Phnom Penh factories fainted late last week after inhaling toxic fumes used to treat clothes, workers and union leaders said yesterday. The mass faintings came as the Clean Clothes Campaign and Community Legal Education Center released an evaluation report ...

Workers deemed at risk of fainting were sent home yesterday morning after arriving at the gates of Sabrina (Cambodia) Manufacturing in Kampong Speu province, following two mass fainting incidents at the facility last week, union officials said. Ouk Lina, an administrative officer at the Free Trade ...

More than 100 female workers fainted yesterday in Kompong Speu province at a Taiwanese-owned garment factory manufacturing clothes for the US sports brand Nike, an official from the Ministry of Labor said. Pok Vanthath, deputy director of vocational safety inside the ministry’s health department, said he ...

Ninety-five percent of factories in the country are issuing too much overtime, while more than 60 percent of factories are too hot, according to a report released yesterday by the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Better Factories program. Both the excessive overtime and the hot working conditions ...

Low wages and a lack of occupational health and safety measures led to a mass fainting on Tuesday at a Phnom Penh garment factory that produces clothes for well-known brands Wal-Mart, Target and Reebok, according to a statement released by the Community Legal Education Center ...

About 60 female workers at a garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Russei Keo district were rushed to a nearby hospital yesterday after fainting from inhaling paint fumes. Tuol Sangke commune police chief said that workers at King First Industrial Co Ltd began vomiting and complaining of ...

The International Labour Organisation’s Better Factories program is seeking funding for a campaign to prevent “future fainting incidents” at the garment factories it monitors, following the release on Friday of the results of its investigation into them, according to a document obtained by the Post. The ...

Three false alarms at a garment factory triggered another mass fainting incident yesterday morning, sending 59 female staff, including one security guard, to hospitals and clinics, according to a statement from the Ministry of Labour. The first alarm went off  about 7:40am in a sewing section, ...

The Kampong Chhnang provincial labour department has agreed to mediate an ongoing dispute between workers at a garment factory in the province and their employer over alleged violations of the Labour Law. Pov Sitha, director of the provincial labour department, said workers at the M&V International ...

Female workers were rushed to hospital in a second mass fainting yesterday at Su Tong Fang Ying Kam garment factory in Russey Keo district, unionists said. About 17 female workers became overwhelmed with diesel fumes from their sewing machines and were rushed to Calmette Hospital, where ...

Workers at a garment factory that was temporarily shut after more than 200 women collapsed in two mass fainting incidents last week gathered yesterday at the facility in Kampong Speu province for a Buddhist ceremony intended to rid the factory of evil spirits. Pheng Songoun, a ...

About 170 garment workers fainted at a factory in Kampong Speu yesterday, the first day Anful Garments Manufacturing reopened after being hit by a mass fainting incident on Monday, workers and government officials said yesterday. The second mass fainting at the Hong Kong-owned factory, which supplies ...

Workers at a garment factory in Kampong Speu province that supplies global retailer H&M will return to work tomorrow, after more than 100 staff were hopitalised on Monday, following what they and union representatives described as a mass fainting incident. A spokesperson for H&M’s headquarters in ...

More than 100 workers collapsed at the Anful Garments Factory in Kampong Speu yesterday after the cloth they were working with was sprayed with insecticide on Sunday, a senior provincial health official said. Or Vanthen, director of the Kampong Speu provincial health department, said 144 workers ...

It sounds like something from a Victorian novel – hundreds of young women falling, en masse, into a swoon. But this phenomenon has become a bafflingly common occurrence in modern-day Cambodia. The incidents have been limited to women working in a small number of the country’s ...

Workers at two different factories in Phnom Penh suffered mass fainting spells yesterday according to the Ministry of Labor and the factory officials. A Puma owned shoe factory 49 workers fainted and at the Hung Way garment factory another 64 workers fainted. The Puma factory ...

Hung Wah Cambodia Garment factory has been temporarily closed by its management after a second mass fainting spell of its floor workers. Authorities have asked that the factory close for a short time in order for the workers to have an opportunity to relax. There ...