ពលកម្ម
Men rescued from fishing boat slavery
Two Cambodians were repatriated yesterday after being rescued from a fishing vessel at a port in Senegal on Friday, thanks to collaborative intervention by the International Organization for Migration and Senegalese authorities. Toy Koeun, 29, from Pursat province, and Som Pich, 20, from Kampot province, said ...
Thai Seafood Factory Receives Glowing Review
Thai police investigating allegations of myriad labor violations at a seafood factory employing hundreds of Cambodian migrant workers have given the facility a clean bill of health. A report last week by a Cambodian NGO, the Community Legal Education Center (CLEC), based on interviews with workers ...
Future of Gold Tower 42 in Arbitration Court
The owner of the $240 million Gold Tower 42 project in Phnom Penh has entered into arbitration with the project’s builder, in a bid to get work started again after construction halted on the project in September 2010 due to poor unit sales and cost ...
To Gain From Asean Labor Market, Workforce Needs New Skills
Cambodia needs to improve the skills of its workforce if it is to compete and benefit from Asean’s plan for greater integration and the free flow of skilled labor within the region by 2015, Minister of Labor Vong Sauth said on Friday at the Asean ...
Hun Sen Asks Asean to Protect Migrant Workers
Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday repeated a call for Asean countries to put a stop to the exploitation of migrant workers and urged the acceleration of efforts to provide protection for such workers. At the Asean Summit last month, Mr. Hun Sen said that protecting the ...
Workers waiting for a bargain
Informal workers, a class that includes beer promoters, tuk tuk drivers and farmers, are among those who stand to benefit most from the upcoming trade-union law, observers say – and workers say it can’t come soon enough. Dave Welsh, country director of the American Center for ...
Cambodians Face Abuse at Seafood Factory
A Thai seafood factory supplying retail giant Walmart is continuing to violate its labor arrangements with hundreds of Cambodian workers there and could leave up to 100 of them stranded and jobless by next week, the Cambodian Legal Education Center (CLEC) said in a new ...
Families call for help to find maids
The families of two maids working in Malaysia asked Preah Vihear’s anti-human trafficking office and the human rights group Adhoc yesterday to intervene on behalf of their daughters, whom they haven’t seen or heard from since last year, officials said. ...
Maid Held By Malaysian Employers, Mother Says
The Cambodian Legal Education Center (CLEC), a rights group, is investigating a mother’s claim that her daughter is being abused and held against her will by her employers in Malaysia, Moeun Tola, head of CLEC’s labor program, said yesterday. ...
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 ...
Thailand Asked to Help Stop Labor Smuggling
Cambodian officials asked their Thai counterparts during a meeting Friday to crack down on human smugglers on their side of the border who bring Cambodians in to work in Thailand. Banteay Meanchey provincial government spokesman Ouk Keoratanak said a delegation led by provincial Deputy Governor Try ...
Tourism Industry's Growth Offers Job Creation For Local Labor Force
PHNOM PENH: Cambodia is trying to boost the tourism industry after its contribution to economic growth and offering job creation as ASEAN economic integration 2015 is moving and the free flow of workforce mobilization has been needed to help ensure steady growth. Cambodia’s tourism sector, in 2011, offered 350,000 direct jobs and millions of ...
Union leader hurt in strike
Thousands of garment workers went on strike yesterday demanding higher wages, fees for transportation and housing, and in one case, the elimination of smelly odours caused by a fish farm near their factory. Workers burned tyres and one union leader was allegedly assaulted with an electric ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012050355951/National-news/union-leader-hurt-in-strikes.html
Sihanoukville port construction in final phase
The government will spend a total of $85 million, funded by a Japanese government loan, for the third and final phase of the expansion of Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, which will more than double the port’s import-export capacity by 2012, Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday. “It ...
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
Malaria cases up among laborer community
Cambodia has made real progress in decreasing cases of malaria – already surpassing the Millennium Development Goal for malaria four years ahead of the 2015 target – but certain communities still face major challenges in combating the disease, officials said yesterday on World Malaria Day. Although ...
Agreement to protect maids needs strengthening, Gov't says
A draft memorandum of understanding (MoU) drawn up by Malaysia to regulate maids working in the country does not sufficiently protect their rights and needs improvements, an official at the Labor Ministry said on Thursday. Malaysian officials drew up the MoU between the two governments following ...
Walmart intervention sought at Thai factory
A large North American union has called on US retail giant Walmart to take immediate action against one of its seafood suppliers in Thailand accused of holding Cambodian workers in debt bondage while barely providing them with enough money to eat. The United Food and Commercial Workers ...
Unions to Form Committee to Focus on Minimum Wage
The leaders of seven major unions and labor confederations announced yesterday in a joint statement that they will form an inter-union committee to rally the government on raising the country’s minimum wage of $61, with the unions believe is too low. ...
Strings attached to Thai firm’s offer
Cambodia migrant workers seeking to leave allegedly exploitative conditions at the Phatthana Seafood factory in southern Thailand said yesterday that they were still being forced to pay to get their passports back. The factory, which exports fish to buyers across the world including Walmart, has come ...
Nike Representatives Visit Factory, Talk Faintings
Representatives from US sports brand Nike yesterday visited the company’s supplier factory in Kompong Speu province to investigate the cause of last week’s mass faintings, officials from the Ministry of Labor said. Pok Vanthath, deputy director of vocational safety for the Labor Ministry’s health department, said ...
Nike Visits Over Recent Faintings at Factory
Representatives from US sports brand Nike will arrive today to investigate last week’s mass faintings at their supplier factory in Kompong Speu province, officials from the Labor Ministry and an International Labor Organization (ILO) representative said yesterday. Pok Vanthath, deputy director of vocational safety for the ...
‘Maid brokers’ on the stand
A teenager was one of 13 girls locked inside a recruitment company’s offices in the capital last year after being promised work as a maid in Malaysia, she told the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday. The court yesterday tried three people over alleged illegal detention and human ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012040655461/National-news/maid-brokers-on-the-stand.html
‘New deal’ eyed for migrant workers
Prime Minister Hun Sen’s call on Tuesday to strengthen cooperation among ASEAN members to protect the rights of migrant workers echoed recent comments by rights groups who say further protections are necessary as the 2015 deadline for an integrated economic community looms. As that deadline approaches, ...