News

When is a strike not a strike? That’s a question being asked after union leaders yesterday announced they will inform garment factory owners that their members want to use annual leave days to wage their stay-at-home strike the week after Khmer New Year. The leaders of eight ...

Two unions that called for a stay-at-home strike by garment factory employees Wednesday had little success in mobilizing workers after six other unions, under pressure from the government and factory owners, pulled out of the planned industrial action on Tuesday. Union leaders who pushed ahead with ...

The government now requires union leaders to prove that they have no criminal record before registering new branches of their organization, according to a statement from the Ministry of Labor, a decision that comes less than a week before planned nationwide strikes in the garment ...

Workers at two different garment factories say that managers locked them inside their workplaces last week when they tried to participate in a boycott of overtime. Union representatives and rank-and-file employees at Kampong Speu province’s Complete Honour Footwear Industrial Cambodia Co, Ltd and Dai Yi Fashion ...

A coalition of 18 labor unions and associations is today set to begin the first phase of a nationwide labor strike in the garment sector by calling on workers in about 100 factories to boycott working overtime, according to union leaders. Despite efforts by the government ...

After the Court of Appeal denied bail to 21 jailed protesters on Tuesday, 16 labor unions and associations announced Wednesday that they will retaliate by calling a nationwide labor strike in the middle of March. The unions, which mainly represent workers in the garment industry, said ...

International buyers and trade union representatives have been unable to meet with Prime Minister Hun Sen or other government officials, despite a request following deadly worker demonstration crackdowns last month. Major international buyers signed on to a joint letter condemning the violence and urging the government ...

At the end of a well-paved road just past the city’s airport sits a cluster of factories. Each one is barely discernible from the next – grey concrete walls and blue aluminium roofs. But one factory in the lot, MAG (Cambodia), is different. In a country ...

A labour law expert from the International Labour Organization yesterday rejected claims made by Cambodian factories and employers associations that workers in the Kingdom have no fundamental right to strike. In a paid advertisement in the Post yesterday, the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) and ...

The Interior Ministry’s penal department on Monday questioned two representatives of the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions (CATU) over claims that they incited violence during protests at a Kandal province garment factory in late December. Jack Liu, director-general of Tainan Enterprises (Cambodia) Co. Ltd., filed a ...

Garment industry, Cambodia’s largest foreign currency earner, reported a 20 percent rise in exports last year, according to the figures of the Ministry of Commerce on Monday. The Southeast Asian nation exported apparel products in equivalent to 5.53 billion U.S. dollars last year, up 20 percent ...

Taiwanese garment factory Grand Twins International (GTI) has carefully laid out a schedule so it can go public on Cambodia’s stock exchange after the dust settles from unrest tied to minimum wage disputes, according to the company’s chief financial controller, Henry Chen. GTI received approval from ...

A coalition of 30 brands and three global unions have sent a letter to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen calling for an investigation into the recent use of deadly force against striking garment-sector workers. The letter, dated Friday, urged the government to launch a new process ...

Six major retail, footwear and garment industry associations whose members account for over 90 per cent of garment imports in the US and Canada have called on the Cambodian government, the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) and unions to resume wage negotiations. The open ...

The Free Trade Union (FTU) on Monday reported an overall increase in industrial action by its local branches last year with 136 total strikes in the first 11 months of 2013, up 35 percent from all of 2012, when there were 101 strikes by its ...

Visiting representatives from the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) on Monday urged the Labor Ministry to withdraw its threat to revoke the licenses of six unions behind recent strikes, and to drop legal proceedings against union leader Rong Chhun. His visit follows garment worker protests ...

The unions behind several days of strikes that turned deadly this month said they will officially ask the Labor Ministry today to resume negotiations on a new minimum wage for the country’s critical garment sector, and said they would hold more street protests if their ...

Major labels that have clothing manufactured in Cambodian factories have written an open letter expressing concern for the recent shootings of workers demonstrating for higher wages. Adidas, Gap, H&M, Levi’s and Puma were among those that signed the January 7 letter to the Phnom Penh government, ...

As garment workers continued to return to their factories Wednesday after several days of strikes that turned deadly last week, some of their employers have wasted no time in suing the unions behind the strikes, demanding compensation. Phnom Penh Municipal Court chief clerk Prak Savouth said ...

Union leaders say workers will continue to strike over low wages, despite a violent crackdown by authorities last week and threats this week from factories who say they will be forced to move to other countries if strikes continue. Five different union say their workers will ...

The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia is helping its members sue several unions for damages after a walkout over demands to raise the minimum wage to $160. Ken Loo, GMAC’s secretary general, said that more than 150 members are jumping on board to sue: “And the ...

Unions behind last week’s garment factory strikes said their members had largely gone back to work this week, although they have not ruled out resuming protests for a higher minimum wage later this month. Tens of thousands of workers went on strike starting on December 24 ...

A senior member of the Garment Manufacturer’s Association in Cambodia (GMAC) on Sunday endorsed the use of deadly force by military police against striking garment workers, which left five dead and more than 20 with gunshot wounds. “GMAC condemns the use of violence, period,” he ...

The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) said Thursday most of its 559 factories would continue to be closed due to security concerns after six pro-opposition trade unions led striking workers to destroy factories’ properties and forced workers to join their protests. “Because of the current ...