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Cambodia’s capital on Thursday, arresting five monks and 10 others in a display of force that has been described by a rights group as unprecedented. The soldiers from Special Command Unit 911 were deployed to crush the demonstration over minimum wages near the Yak Jin ...

The Interior Ministry on Wednesday threatened to revoke the license of the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association (CITA) if it goes ahead with a planned demonstration next week seeking higher wages for the country’s educators. An official at the ministry said that the move to revoke the ...

As mass demonstrations by garment factory workers continued Monday, the government laid out plans to bring an end to the labor unrest within the next three days, including suing union leaders in the courts and mobilizing security forces to take unspecified action. Signed by Council ...

Cambodian Minister of Labor Ith Samheng on Friday afternoon held an urgent talk with the representatives of six pro-opposition trade unions after they have led tens of thousands of workers off work in protest against low wage increase for 2014. As the meeting was going on, ...

Ahead of today’s Ministry of Labour announcement of a minimum wage increase for Cambodia’s apparel sector, opposition leader Sam Rainsy yesterday urged striking workers in Svay Rieng province to hold out until their monthly salary is raised to $160. “[Garment] workers should not return to work ...

Disabled Cambodians were promised a “society without barriers” by Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday in a speech on Cambodia’s Day of Persons with Disabilities in Phnom Penh. About 1,500 disabled Cambodians marked the day at a gathering of more than 2,000 people in the capital’s Koh ...

Fewer and fewer primary schoolteachers are willing to cope with poor pay and the worst student-to-teacher ratio outside of Africa, government data shows. Annual reports released by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport reveal that despite fervent recruitment efforts, every year since 2005 – when ...

Teachers across Cambodia are insisting pay raises aren’t just an election year issue. More than 30 representative teachers gathered for the start of a three-day seminar in Phnom Penh yesterday to continue demanding living wages. The teacher are asking for 250$ per month, according to seminar ...

A teacher at Tea Chamrath High School in Pursat town has accused school director Bou Sovannarith and deputy director Chhub Buntha of forcing students to pay bribes in the form of, among other things, enrolment fees for matriculation into the 2013-2014 academic year. Phat Malin, the ...

Two years out from the 2015 Millennium Development Goals’ target of universal access to education, Cambodia remains plagued by school infrastructure shortages, with a scarcity of classrooms and decrepit facilities that threaten students’ safety, NGOs and teachers say. At Slorkram Primary School in Battambang, teachers ...

Union workers and leaders appeared divided yesterday on the question of whether to support the opposition party’s planned three-day demonstration at Freedom Park. Campaign promises from the Cambodia National Rescue Party to raise minimum monthly salaries to $150 seemed to have struck a chord with garment ...

The Ministry of Education on Tuesday again publicly accused the Ministry of Finance of not injecting enough funds into the education sector in order to bring Cambodia in line with the rest of Southeast Asia. Speaking at the close of a two-day workshop to formulate the ...

In the middle of an election campaign in which wages have been a prominent issue, the Ministry of Education did something out of the ordinary Monday: It made public the official pay scale it uses to remunerate its teachers. The list contains figures that are somewhat ...

Cambodian Confederation of Unions president Rong Chhun yesterday appealed to landlords with properties close to garment factories not to take advantage of the industry’s minimum wage increase by raising rent prices. The minimum monthly salary in the garment sector – Cambodia’s biggest export industry – officially ...

Around 20,000 workers from the garment, construction, tourism, banking, service and agriculture sectors want to march to present a petition to the National Assembly on International Labor Day, May 1, but Phnom Penh City Hall did not approve the rally. City hall asked them to wait ...

Four of Cambodia’s independent and opposition-aligned unions have informed the Phnom Penh municipality that they plan to gather 20,000 people on May 1 to march from Olympic Stadium to the National Assembly. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday issued extensive orders to unions, factories, workers and authorities to rid the garment industry of violent strikes, roadblocks and rights violations he says are threatening public order. “There have been many strikes and demonstrations at factories recently, and, in some cases, ...

Union leaders asked garment workers to go on strike and demand the $100/month wage because the factory owners were not budging from their $75 stance. Rong Chhun, President of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions, said “This was the last meeting and we couldn’t ...

Unions and labour rights groups have spent recent months unashamedly drilling home a stark reminder: Cambodia’s minimum garment wage, at $61 per month, compares poorly with those in Thailand – where workers earn more than $200 a month – and Vietnam, which has a base ...

The government approved 103 factories with a combined investment of $660 million last year a big increase from the previous year’s 52 factories valued at $230 million, according to data from the Council for the Development of Cambodia. Industry representatives and economists said the sharp ...

Speaking to hundreds of garment workers yesterday in Phnom Penh, Kem Sokha, deputy president of the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), appealed to those in attendance to vote for the newly formed opposition party, promising higher wages, social security and free access to schools and ...

Unions and the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) are unlikely to walk out of their final minimum wage meeting today with an agreed-upon increase for workers, industry insiders said yesterday. Both parties have reaffirmed their respective positions: GMAC secretary-general Ken Loo said yesterday that “nothing’s ...

A higher minimum salary for Cambodia’s garment and footwear worker is still not within sight after talks broke down Tuesday between unions representing the workers and their employers, officials said. The garment and footwear workers unions proposed to nearly double the current minimum monthly wage of ...

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 ...