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Garment and footwear industry, Cambodia’s largest income earner, reported a 16 percent surge in exports in the first three months of 2014, the figures of the Ministry of Commerce showed Monday. The Southeast Asian nation exported apparel and footwear products in equivalent to 1.56 billion U.S. ...

Trade unions may have failed to get a stay-at-home strike for higher wages off the ground after the Khmer New Year earlier this month. But a strike for bonus pay is picking up steam in Svay Rieng Province, where some 20,000 garment workers protested at ...

The Garment Manufacturers Associations in Cambodia (GMAC) on Sunday urged the government to curb outlawed garment strikes that have occurred this week at Special Economic Zones in eastern Bavet City, which are expected to continue next week. “GMAC is disappointed that the government and local authorities ...

A would-be tripartite workshop intended to improve the garment sector’s minimum wage setting process closed Friday, with the industry’s most influential player, the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC), boycotting the talks at Phnom Penh Hotel. The two-day workshop would have been the first meeting between ...

Government officials and union representatives met behind closed doors Thursday to start hashing out a better way to set the minimum wage for the country’s all-important but troubled garment sector at a workshop brokered by the International Labor Organization (ILO). But what was supposed to be ...

Garment factory owners failed to turn up for what was supposed to have been a tripartite meeting with the government and worker unions on Thursday to help break an impasse in negotiations to increase the minimum wage for workers, officials said. The International Labor Organization (ILO) ...

The vast majority of the country’s 600,000-strong garment factory workforce appeared to be back on the job Monday despite a call from unions to continue a stay-at-home strike until Tuesday. Eight unions had spent weeks urging workers to stay home after the Khmer New Year from ...

A Phnom Penh-based factory supplying uniforms for police officers and firefighters in the US city of Los Angeles continues to break Cambodian labour laws, a report to be publicly released today says. Kin Tai Garment factory, a supplier to 5.11 Tactical – which sells the uniforms ...

More than 2,000 workers at three factories in Svay Rieng’s Bavet City went on strike Saturday, claiming their bosses owed them money. About 500 workers at the You Li factory, which makes baby clothes, went on strike Saturday because management refused to pay them for Thursday ...

A few garment factories resumed operations in Phnom Penh on Friday, albeit at reduced capacity, as thousands of workers returned to the city after Khmer New Year celebrations in the provinces. While the majority of factories in Meanchey and Pur Senchey districts stayed closed, it remained ...

Most garment factories did not open for business Thursday, choosing to extend the Khmer New Year holidays—which officially ended Wednesday—rather than face industrial action in the form of a planned nationwide stay-at-home strike. However, a number of workers interviewed Thursday said they knew nothing about the ...

Exclusive use of short-term contracts continues to impede progress in Cambodia’s garment sector, with major brands still sourcing from factories violating the statutory two-year limit on temporary employment, labour rights groups have warned. According to a report released last week by the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), ...

Cambodia’s government should make public a proposed law aimed at regulating the country’s labor movement, a rights group said Thursday, amid concerns that it includes provisions for the suspension of unions and for severely restricting their right to freedom of association. Requests from civil society to ...

Along Phnom Penh’s industry-heavy Veng Sreng Street on Wednesday, garment factories lay idle in observance of Khmer New Year. The dorms around them were empty, save for the few workers who could not afford the bus ticket home for the holiday, which ended Wednesday. Eight unions ...

The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) warned garment workers on Thursday that they risk losing their jobs if they extend their Khmer New Year vacation by joining a stay-at-home strike. Aiming to avoid police suppression of street protests for a higher garment sector minimum wage, ...

The Zongtex Garment factory off Phnom Penh’s Russian Boulevard looks like a nondescript residential compound, hidden down a dead-end road. There are no signs suggesting that it supplied to some of the world’s leading high street names – and the US military. Taiwanese-owned Zongtex Garment Manufacturing ...

At the site where security forces shot dead at least four people during a nationwide strike on January 3, union leaders yesterday passed out fliers encouraging workers to join a stay-at-home strike after Khmer New Year. When workers filed out of Canadia Industrial Park’s gates for ...

In their latest bid for a $160 minimum monthly wage for the garment industry, independent unions will lead a “stay at home” strike late next week. While the chances of that figure being approved anytime soon seem slight – the government has only just announced a ...

The building that housed USA Fully Field Garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district stands empty now. The grounds are littered with garbage and boxes full of dusty brand labels that were stitched onto clothes by almost 400 workers before the factory owner fled in ...

Garment worker unions have tangled with factory owners over the unions’ plan to use the coming Khmer New Year holiday to launch a nationwide strike. A coalition of eight unions will send a letter today to the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) stating that workers ...

The Ministry of Labour has announced that factory managers must allow employees three days off for Khmer New Year, even as some union leaders encourage workers to extend that time. In a letter to factory owners dated March 25, Labour Minister Ith Sam Heng reminds owners ...

The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) on Monday launched an initiative to provide health insurance to the nation’s workforce, a plan that the country’s largest employers’ associations said was premature. NSSF director Ouk Samvithya said that by the middle of this year, enterprises in the country ...

The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia says it will hold a workshop next month to explain to foreign managers why Cambodians behave in certain ways. “This workshop will provide the participants with relevant cultural information about the Cambodian workers and will show the different perspectives from ...

A government committee charged with assessing damage from the garment worker protests in December and January has put the value of the destruction at over $250,000. It places blame squarely on the opposition CNRP and a trio of union leaders. That committee’s report, released Thursday, ...