ពលកម្ម
No consensus on next move in SL drama
After the management of an embattled garment factory this week refused to follow a government order to reinstate 19 dismissed union leaders and activists, unionists and observers are at a divergence of opinion over how the state should respond. “It’s fairly unprecedented,” Dave Welsh, country director ...
Sean Teehan and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/no-consensus-next-move-sl-drama
Labor Ministry Says Brands Hold Key to Wages
The minimum wage for garment factory workers can only be raised if international clothing brands sourcing from Cambodia pay more for their products, a Ministry of Labor official said Tuesday. Khieu Savuth, chief of the Ministry of Labor’s labor conflict commission, laid down the challenge a ...
Dene-Hern Chen and Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/labor-ministry-says-brands-hold-key-to-wages-47966/
Cambodian Unions Call for Doubling of Minimum Wage for Factory Workers
Four trade unions on Tuesday demanded that Cambodia’s garment and footwear manufacturers raise the minimum wage of their workers and provide them with additional benefits, threatening a nationwide strike and demonstrations if they do not comply. In a joint letter to the Van Sou Ieng, president ...
Radio free Asia
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/wages-11262013151923.html
Factory rejects order to rehire 19 workers
Flouting a government order, representatives of SL Garment Processing (Cambodia) Ltd yesterday refused to rehire 19 union representatives and activists during a meeting with the Ministry of Labour. Rehiring the 19 has been the key sticking point in ending the three-month-old strike, which erupted into violence ...
Mom Kunthear and Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/factory-rejects-order-rehire-19-workers
Food-price hike hits workers
The price of food spiked this month, and Cambodia’s low-paid garment workers are feeling the effects. Meat, vegetables, toothbrushes, beauty accessories and even the plastic bags they get packed in have all seen a sharp bump up in price this month, some items by as much ...
Daniel de Carteret and Hor Kimsay
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/food-price-hike-hits-workers
Factory ordered to clean act
The Ministry of Labour has ordered management at a Kandal province garment factory to clean their workroom and limit employees’ overtime hours, in response to over 100 workers fainting over two days. During a visit to King First Industrial Co, Ltd’s Kandal location yesterday, Seng Sakada, ...
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/factory-ordered-clean-act
H&M pledges living wage for textile workers in Bangladesh and Cambodia
H&M has pledged to pay a living wage to 850,000 textile workers after expressing frustration over a lack of action by governments to address working conditions in Asian factories in the wake of the Rana Plaza disaster. The world’s second-biggest clothing retailer said it would support ...
Sean Farrell
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/25/h-m-living-wage-textile-workers-bangladesh-cambodia
Mass fainting at Kandal factory
About 50 garment workers fainted yesterday at the King First Industrial factory in Kandal province’s Ang Snuol district, union representatives said. Khouth Touch, the Free Trade Union president at the factory, said a number of workers had experienced stomach aches and diarrhoea that morning. ...
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/mass-fainting-kandal-factory
Meas Sotha—The Man at the Center of the SL Factory Strike
Meas Sotha is not leaving the SL Garment Factory. As tensions between management and workers have intensified over the past five months, Mr. Sotha and his role at the strike-plagued factory have moved center stage. Workers claim that since Mr. Sotha took over from a previous SL ...
Colin Meyn and Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/meas-sotha-the-man-at-the-center-of-the-sl-factory-strike-47684/
SL Workers Demand Representatives Reinstated
About 200 workers protested outside SL Garment Factory in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district Wednesday demanding that managers reinstate 19 union representatives before a 15-day deadline set by the government elapses. The Council of Ministers has ordered the factory to rehire the fired unionists or face punitive ...
Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/sl-workers-demand-representatives-reinstated-47539/
Strike reaches City Hall
More than 100 workers from the Alim garment factory in Phnom Penh marched on City Hall yesterday, demanding the dismissal of four managers. Yam Thaisan, a legal officer from a union representing the workers at the Por Sen Chey district factory, said strikers had called on ...
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/strike-reaches-city-hall
Despite Denials, Levi’s Still Producing at SL Garment Factory
U.S. denim giant Levi Strauss continued to deny this week that its products are linked to the strife-torn SL Garment Factory in Phnom Penh, despite new photographs showing Levi’s trademark jeans stacked on benches at the plant in Meanchey district. The Singaporean-owned factory, which also produces ...
Dene-Hern Chen and Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/despite-denials-levis-still-producing-at-sl-garment-factory-47389/
One Week on, Shooting Investigation Has Yielded Nothing
One week after police opened fire on civilians during clashes that broke out during an SL Garment Factory protest, killing bystander Eng Sokhom and injuring nine others, arrests have yet to be made on the back of an investigation that victims said appears to be ...
Mech Dara and Lauren Crothers
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/one-week-on-shooting-investigation-has-yielded-nothing-47387/
Factory Ordered To Hire Back Union Leaders After Violent Protest
The government has ordered the SL Garment factory to rehire 19 worker representatives, following a brutal crackdown on demonstrators outside the home of Prime Minister Hun Sen last week. In a letter to the company, Khun Chinken, undersecretary of state for the Ministry of Labor, said ...
Kong Sothanarith
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/factory-ordered-to-hire-back-union-leaders-after-violent-protest/1792644.html
Baby saved from ‘traffickers’
A 7-month-old baby, a woman and two men en route to Malaysia were rescued from two alleged traffickers near the Cambodia-Thai border in Banteay Meanchey’s Poipet town, police said yesterday. Heng Chhun, 48, and Som Na, 38, will face charges related to human trafficking, Prum Sonthor, ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/baby-saved-%E2%80%98traffickers%E2%80%99
Complaint Lodged Against Security Chiefs Over Woman’s Shooting
A protester involved in Tuesday’s clash between SL Garment Factory workers and security forces filed a complaint yesterday against Phnom Penh’s municipal and military police chiefs, accusing them of responsibility for the death of a 49-year-old street-food vendor who was killed by police gunfire, according ...
Anniversary marked by inaction
Six months after two of her co-workers were crushed to death when a storage level collapsed at the Wing Star Shoes factory in Kampong Speu, employee Yu Manith is noticing the cracks in a factory wall beginning to expand. Shortly after police rummaged through the ...
Shane Worrell and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/anniversary-marked-inaction
Social Media Challenges ‘Official’ Version of Events
Seeing is believing—particularly in a country where the government controls the broadcast media and current affairs news, aired on pro-ruling party TV and radio, is often at odds with the country’s few independent media outlets. But in the aftermath of a violent clash between striking garment ...
Kuch Naren and Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/social-media-challenges-official-version-of-events-47012/
Police Deny Responsibility for Shooting Civilians
Police on Wednesday denied any responsibility for the shooting death of a street food vendor after they fired live rounds during clashes with garment factory workers in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district on Tuesday, with a government spokesman saying the security forces can use “any means” ...
Lauren Crothers and Phann Ana
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/police-deny-responsibility-for-shooting-civilians-46937/
Hun Sen Set to Weigh In on SL Garment Factory Dispute
Officials at the Ministry of Labor who mediated talks Wednesday between the management of SL Garment Factory and union leaders who have led a three-month-long strike at the factory said that they would send the results of the meeting to Prime Minister Hun Sen to ...
Khuon Narim and Colin Meyn
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sen-set-to-weigh-in-on%E2%80%88sl%E2%80%88garment%E2%80%88factory-dispute-46952/
Garment Workers Block Road, Protest for Higher Wages
There were major traffic delays along Phnom Penh’s Veng Sreng Boulevard in Pur Senchey district Wednesday after about 200 garment workers from the Alim Cambodia Co. Ltd. garment factory formed a gated roadblock and protested for higher wages. A line of halted container trucks stretched for ...
Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/garment-workers-block-road-protest-for-higher-wages-46954/
Police in strike shootings to be investigated
Police officers who defied orders not to open fire on rioting garment workers on Tuesday – an act that resulted in the fatal shooting of 49-year-old rice vendor Eng Sokhom – could lose their jobs, a National Police spokesman said yesterday. Kirt Chantarith told the Post that a ...
Shane Worrell and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/police-strike-shootings-be-investigated
Hun Sen’s Sister Linked to Private Security Firm at SL Factory
The younger sister of Prime Minister Hun Sen is the owner of a private security firm that has been hired to protect the SL Garment Factory from its workers, who have been on strike for more than three months, officials at the firm said Wednesday. Hun ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sens-sister-linked-to-private-security-firm-at-sl-factory-46946/
Cambodian police send 2 suspects to court after deadly clash in garment protest
The Phnom Penh Municipal Police on Wednesday sent two suspects to court with the charges of ” vandalism and causing injuries on police” in a Tuesday’s clash between the police and protesting garment workers, which resulted in the death of a woman and several injuries. Eang ...
Global Times News Staff
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/824631.shtml#.UoQswPlgd8E