Hun Sen Orders Workers Compensated

Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen has promised to compensate thousands of garment workers demanding back pay they say they are owed since their factory owner fled the country to escape mounting debt, according to officials. … Kandal provincial labor department director Thol Neang told RFA’s Khmer Service Tuesday that Hun Sen had ordered the Ministry of Labor to pay the workers and that local officials had begun registering their names in order to compensate them. “Samdech [Hun Sen] ordered the government to use the national budget to pay the workers according to their demands,” Thol Neang said, using the prime minister’s honorific title. Yung Wah Complex Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union representative Oum Visal said the government would have to spend about U.S. $8 million to compensate the 7,000 workers. …

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/workers-02192013184511.html