Official says faintings a ‘scar’ on image of nation’s factories
A 10 per cent rise in the number of garment and footwear factories this year showed the government’s commitment to solving labour disputes, and that its mechanisms to do this were working, a senior official at the labour ministry said yesterday, while admitting that a spate of fainting incidents had raised concerns. “Because we have been able to solve labour disputes legally, we have been able to attract more factories”, Mam Vannak, secretary of state at the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training, said, adding that their number had risen from 501 at the end of last year to 552 so far this year. The factories employed about 300,000 people, he said. Mam Vannak’s comments came at a press conference at the International Labour Organisation’s Better Factories Cambodia office, which was held to draw attention to a regional summit next month in Japan on economic and employment issues.
