News

Phnom Penh’s garment factories are operating at a greatly reduced capacity as workers return home to the provinces in droves in response to the government’s decision to increase security after the opposition warned they plan to hold mass demonstrations against the election results. Ken Loo, secretary-general ...

Sand-dredging boats were active along the Mekong River in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district on Tuesday, despite the city’s municipal governor, Pa Socheatvong, having ordered a complete suspension of dredging in the city the day before. Phnom Penh City Hall on Monday put in place the temporary ...

Phnom Penh municipal governor Pa Socheatvong has ordered a complete suspension of all sand-dredging activities while the municipality investigates whether the companies are operating illegally, a spokesman said. The order came during a meeting yesterday between the governor and his subordinates, City Hall spokesman Long Dimanche ...

Villagers in Kandal province have instigated a turf war over a private company they accuse of illegally pumping sand out of Koh Prak River. Fearing riverbank erosion could damage the surrounding community, about 100 residents of Koh Prak village in Kien Svay district’s Phoum Thom commune ...

When the garment factory that employs her opened its doors yesterday for the first time since Sunday’s election, Chan Neoun was about 130 kilometres away, at home in Svay Rieng province. Intense rioting and a military crackdown were just some of the rumours flying around ...

Social Affairs Ministry officials yesterday promised that about 750 workers from the shuttered Pine Great garment factory will receive their overdue salaries before the election. Yesterday Touch Somuth, a member of the Social Affairs Ministry committee formed to resolve the issue, said the committee was ...

Despite criticisms over safety, outbreaks of sometimes violent industrial action and a raise in the minimum wage that it was warned would scare off manufacturers, Cambodia’s garment sector is booming, according to government figures. A report on state newswire Agence Kampuchea Presse (AKP) on Friday said ...

Some 400 garment workers yesterday gathered outside the Ministry of Social Affairs to plead for government intervention against a factory owner who fled without paying them overdue wages three months ago. Khem Chamnan, a Free Trade Union representative from the Pine Great (Cambodia) factory in Phnom ...

Thousands of workers from the Macau-owned M & V International Manufacturing Ltd on Wednesday blocked National Road Two to demand better working conditions. The protestors have 11 lists of demands including bonuses of 4,000 riel ($1) for food, $3 for holiday pay, and $12 for ...

The dining hall of a garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district that supplies clothes to U.S. brand Gap collapsed into a pond Monday, injuring more than 20 workers who were eating lunch, workers and officials said. The hall, which is part of Top World Garment ...

Cambodian Confederation of Unions president Rong Chhun yesterday appealed to landlords with properties close to garment factories not to take advantage of the industry’s minimum wage increase by raising rent prices. The minimum monthly salary in the garment sector – Cambodia’s biggest export industry – officially ...

About 5,000 workers went on strike at the M&V garment factory in Kampong Chhnang province yesterday, adding to the list of incidents at the factory in the past two years that has also included mass faintings. Elsewhere, about 700 workers from the Pine Great (Cambodia) ...

The inclusion of 20 communes to the central Phnom Penh water supply in the past year has resulted in a dramatic increase in demand and subsequent shortages, Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority officials said yesterday. “Water demand in Phnom Penh is growing fast day to-day, ...

Two men were arrested yesterday and more than 1 ton of rosewood was confiscated after the car they were using to transport the illegally logged luxury wood smashed through a police barricade in Kandal province, officials said. Deputy Kandal provincial police chief Sao Sothun said that ...

About 90 garment workers began a hunger strike yesterday in front of the shuttered Kingsland Garment Cambodia, Co. Ltd. factory in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district, following weeks of protests demanding unpaid wages and severance pay. “We want the owners of Walmart and H&M to know ...

The Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union (C.CAWDU) filed legal complaints yesterday, following allegations on Wednesday that police had assaulted seven garment workers, including a pregnant woman. Sa’ang district police chief Chea Socheat yesterday again denied officers had been violent during a strike ...

Two protesters and three factory officials were injured in a clash at a garment factory in Kampong Speu province yesterday as a report revealed that more than 60 unionists and workers were injured in such incidents in 2012. Vann Bun, a Free Trade Union activist, said ...

About 80 workers from a garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district – which supplies women’s underwear to U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart – protested yesterday, demanding that the factory owner settle their severance payments, workers and union representatives said. Workers at the Kingsland Garment Cambodia factory ...

Four garment workers, three of them female, were injured yesterday morning when company and police officials clashed with protesters, union representatives said yesterday. During the demonstrations for the reinstatement of fired workers and back pay, authorities beat two workers unconscious at a protest in front of ...

Land prices in Meanchey district’s four communes that had been transferred into Phnom Penh municipality’s control from Kandal province have held steady, despite the construction of Prek Samroung Bridge and the extension of roads to the area. Meanchey Governor Kuch Chamroeun said that he is ...

More than 60 union leaders lost their jobs at garment factories in the past nine months for trying to unionise co-workers, their representatives claimed yesterday. Fourteen members of the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions endured threats, discrimination and ultimately a message they were no longer welcome ...

Cambodian authorities have disrupted several events held by nongovernmental organizations and have threatened to arrest anyone holding protests ahead of sensitive regional summits to be held in the capital Phnom Penh, rights groups said Wednesday. The Independent Democracy of Informal Economic Association (IDEA) said authorities in ...

Authorities in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district continued to demolish houses in Niroth commune yesterday, despite 46 families appealing to the municipality and Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cabinet to intervene. On Tuesday, three houses were torn down as part of efforts to clean up a stretch of ...

Three families were evicted and their houses torn down by authorities in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district yesterday after officials claimed that residents there were polluting a canal with rubbish. The authorities last week warned that families living inside 38 houses in Niroth commune were illegally occupying ...