News
Cambodian labor unions lower minimum wage demands
Cambodian labor unions this week lowered their demands for a 60 percent increase to the country’s $100 minimum wage, as talks loom next month on setting a new wage.Unions agreed to call for $150 a month during a meeting with officials from the Garment Manufacturers’ ...
Lauren Crothers
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/171407/cambodian-labor-unions-lower-minimum-wage-demands.html
Brands dodge blame over substandard factory
Behind the walls of the nondescript Hung Tak garment factory on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, more than 400 workers have been toiling in substandard conditions to cut and stitch clothing for some of the world’s biggest brands. But since the factory was named by the ...
Holly Robertson and Sun Heng
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/brands-dodge-blame-over-substandard-factory-64606/
Factories not monitoring chemicals, says ministry
Following the mass fainting of hundreds of workers at garment factories last week, an official at the Ministry of Labour has raised concerns over the control of toxic chemicals. Leng Tong, director of the Labour Ministry’s occupational health and safety department, said factories should be providing ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/factories-not-monitoring-chemicals-says-ministry
Brands ‘failing their workers’
European mega-brands are not doing enough to ensure that the Cambodian workers who make their products receive a basic living wage, according to a report released today. Tailored Wages, an analysis of 50 of Europe’s biggest clothing brands, found that many major high-street chains are doing ...
Alice Cuddy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/brands-%E2%80%98failing-their-workers%E2%80%99
Cambodia Falls Short as Garment-Industry Model
This small Southeast Asian country was supposed to become a model for the world apparel industry, with tough factory monitoring and strong worker protections. But a dozen years after the United Nations’ International Labour Organization launched a program to manage Cambodia’s booming garment trade—the first of ...
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324423904578521240151597504.html
Foreign activists detained
Police arrested five activists from labour-rights group Clean Clothes Campaign yesterday outside the E Garment factory in Kandal province. Neuv Sakhan, deputy director of the Kandal provincial immigration police, told the Post four women and one man, from Norway, Belgium, England and Austria, had been taken ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013030661780/National/foreign-activists-detained.html
Unions set double wage as minimum target
Trade unions agreed yesterday to lobby the government to double the minimum wage in the garment sector, representatives said, following two days of meetings. Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions, said union delegates had agreed on the $120 per month figure ahead of ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013022161534/National/unions-set-double-wage-as-minimum-target.html
H&M slammed over wages
Criticism has mounted against Swedish multinational clothing company H&M in its home country following a documentary released last week that sheds light on wages in its source factories in Cambodia. The episode of Swedish network TV4’s Kalla Fakta, or Cold Facts, focuses mainly on Cambodian garment ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012102959442/National-news/ham-slammed-over-wages.html
Mind the wage gap
Most mornings, garment worker Vicheka buys food from the street vendors outside her factory in Kampong Chhnang province. The beef and pork dishes, she says, have a tendency to give workers a stomach ache – a reputation forged long before Vicheka and her co-workers at ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012092858979/National-news/mind-the-wage-gap.html
Protesters Stage EU faint-ins
In a year in which more than a thousand Cambodian garment factory workers have fainted on the job, activists across Europe are demonstrating for higher wages and better working conditions in the Kingdom’s factories. Throughout the past week, demonstrators mimicked faintings by collapsing on the floors ...
Activists Stage Flash “Faint-Ins” at H&M, Gap to Protest Sweatshop Conditions
Dozens of human-rights activists are staging flash “faint-ins” at high-street retailers across Europe to illustrate the high incidence of mass fainting in Cambodia’s apparel factories. Protestors from the Clean Clothes Campaign, an alliance of organizations in 15 European countries dedicated to improving working conditions in ...
http://www.ecouterre.com/activists-stage-flash-faint-ins-at-hm-gap-to-protest-sweatshop-conditions/
Fainting workers blame fumes
Almost 150 garment factory workers from two Phnom Penh factories fainted late last week after inhaling toxic fumes used to treat clothes, workers and union leaders said yesterday. The mass faintings came as the Clean Clothes Campaign and Community Legal Education Center released an evaluation report ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012090358448/National-news/fainting-workers-blame-fumes.html
Report Urges Better Factories to do more
Better Factories Cambodia must name and shame garment factories that abuse the labour law if it is to transform Cambodia into an ethical sourcing option, a report on the International Labor Organization initiative says. Better Factories should make monitoring reports public, according to the 10 Years ...