News

Factories in Svay Rieng province’s Manhattan Special Economic Zone have fired or suspended more than 200 workers – and are pursuing legal action against some – for participating in a strike last month that saw some 30,000 walk off the job. An accountant at Kingmaker (Cambodia) ...

Notification that her son is being detained at Correctional Centre 3 in Kampong Cham came as a relief to Touch Sart yesterday, after spending nearly a week wondering whether he was even alive. Since her son, Theng Saroeun, was arrested along with 22 others at demonstrations ...

Garment workers have begun leaving the area surrounding embattled Veng Sreng street en masse, following the outbreak of clashes early on Friday morning. An estimated 80 per cent of the more than 10,000 workers who live and are employed in the Meanchey district suburb have vacated ...

Taking part in daily demonstrations outside the shuttered factory where she once worked is beginning to weigh on Bou Narith and her co-workers. Government officials this morning will sit down with representatives of employees and a representative from USA Fully Field (Cambodia) Garment factory, which, ...

Swedish clothing giant H&M recently announced a program to boost wages for garment workers in its sub-contractor factories around the world, including in Cambodia, where the company is a leading buyer. H&M’s announcement comes at the end of a turbulent year in the garment sector ...

A nearly four-month strike, punctuated by a violent clash between unionists and police that left one bystander dead, could come to an end this afternoon. Officials from SL Garment Processing (Cambodia) Ltd and the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union (C.CAWDU) – which represents a ...

The minimum wage for garment factory workers can only be raised if international clothing brands sourcing from Cambodia pay more for their products, a Ministry of Labor official said Tuesday. Khieu Savuth, chief of the Ministry of Labor’s labor conflict commission, laid down the challenge a ...

A monitoring group backed by the United Nations said it would begin to publicize garment factories’ compliance with worker rights and safety standards in Cambodia, a controversial program that its organizers say will be the world’s most extensive initiative to improve working conditions at plants. The ...

Wages for Cambodian garment workers decreased by more than 20 percent in real terms between 2001 and 2011 despite the industry’s exponential increase in exports, which in 2012 were valued at more than $4 billion, according to a recent report by a U.S.-based workers advocacy ...

Despite criticisms over safety, outbreaks of sometimes violent industrial action and a raise in the minimum wage that it was warned would scare off manufacturers, Cambodia’s garment sector is booming, according to government figures. A report on state newswire Agence Kampuchea Presse (AKP) on Friday said ...

Continuing its efforts to quell an increasing number of strikes in the Kingdom’s lucrative garment sector, the government this week issued a directive aimed at giving provincial and municipal governors powers to resolve issues at factories without calling on ministries in Phnom Penh. “To ensure further ...

The family of a worker who was killed when a ceiling collapsed at Kompong Spue province footwear factory lasts week has accepted 9,000 in compensation, and in return has agreed not file a complaint against the company, the deceased’s wife said yesterday. Rim Sarouen, 22, ...

Labor rights activists and a government official accused the International Labor Organization’s Better Factories Cambodia program of ineffectiveness in its monitoring of factory conditions following a deadly ceiling collapse on Thursday at a shoe factory in Kompong Speu province. Moeun Tola, labor program head of the ...

Suppliers to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) and Hennes & Mauritz AB (HMB) agreed yesterday to pay about $145,000 in back wages and severance to about 160 workers at a Cambodian factory that closed in November, a labor activist involved in the deal said. The agreement, which ...