News

The company behind the defunct mobile operator Mfone has told its former employees that it will consider covering millions of dollars allegedly owned to them in severance pay. The former employees have vowed to keep protesting until they are paid the $44.44 million to which ...

Cambodian police used water cannons Wednesday to disperse around 200 women demanding a quick resolution to long-running land disputes, knocking at least three of the protesters, including a 72-year-old, unconscious. The move came two days after authorities used stun batons to disperse a protest over wages ...

More than 100 former employees of bankrupt mobile phone operator Mfone traveled from three provinces yesterday to protest outside the firm’s shuttered office on Phnom Penh’s Monivong Boulevard demanding their severance pay. Sok Samphorn, an engineer who was employed by Mfone, said employees from Phnom Penh, ...

Cambodia’s reputation as a standard-bearer for apparel workers’ rights is wearing thin – and yet the country is a rising star when it comes to attracting foreign investment and increasing exports. There are many reasons to deter brands and retailers from sourcing clothing in Cambodia. The Kingdom ...

The Japanese athletics brand ASICS said Friday that it would push its four Cambodian sub-contractors to join a programme that monitors conditions in garment and shoe factories. “We will strongly request to our sub-contractors in Cambodia to sign up to this programme,” Katsumi Funakoshi, ASICS ...

Satiating the demands of the global sugar industry is big business for Cambodia’s sugarcane plantations. Yet accusations of human rights abuses and land grabs in the Kingdom have left a bitter aftertaste for many on the ground as companies vie for a larger slice of ...

The Cambodian government has denied any agreement was signed to send women to Qatar to work as domestic workers, an official from the Labour Ministry said this week. The denial comes after a report late last month by Qatari newspaper Gulf Times – which said an ...

The United Nations in Cambodia has taken a beating in recent months. The UN-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal has been plagued by high-profile resignations and accusations of political interference. Elsewhere human rights activists have criticised the UN’s failure to take a firm stance against an increasingly ...

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 ...

It’s not a claim every country can make, but Cambodia builds its own cars. A country known for its low-skilled workforce, the Kingdom exceeded expectations with its January release of the Angkor Car, a mini-electric vehicle able to get up to 300 kilometres per charge. ...

About 90 garment workers began a hunger strike yesterday in front of the shuttered Kingsland Garment Cambodia, Co. Ltd. factory in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district, following weeks of protests demanding unpaid wages and severance pay. “We want the owners of Walmart and H&M to know ...

Since mid-January a group of illegally laid off Cambodian garment workers – mostly women – have been picketing the factory they worked in. Their objective was to stop the company, which closed down, owing the workers, collectively, about US$200,000 of unpaid wages, from removing the ...

More than 500 workers from Phnom Penh’s NagaWorld Casino demonstrated on Monday, in what was their fourth straight day of strike action in front of the casino over wages and the firing of four staff members Sok Narith, deputy secretary general of the Cambodian Tour­ism and ...

Investment in Cambodia from overseas surged by at least 44 percent last year, according to an estimate from the central bank, despite figures suggesting a reduction in the overall flow of foreign currency into Southeast Asian economies. Nguon Sokha, director-general of the National Bank of Cambodia, ...

Thousands of employees of two Singaporean-owned Yung Wah Industrial (Cambodia) Co.Ltd. factories, which produce shirts for Gap Inc. among other international brands, went on strike yesterday in Kandal province, claiming that they were not paid their salaries for last month. “Normally, salaries are paid between the ...

A lobby group says three separate mass fainting incidents this week that took place at two Cambodian garment factories “speaks volumes” about the issue, because both workplaces have relatively good reputations for worker’s rights. More than 140 workers fainted on Wednesday and Thursday at Kandal’s QMI ...

The Arbitration Council heard about 230 collective labor disputes in the garment and footwear industry involving approximately 98,000 workers in 2012, a 38 percent increase from 2011, which saw 161 cases handled, according to the council. Y Samphy, training and communications manager for the council’s Arbitration ...

More than 200 garment workers gathered at Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park yesterday to protest for higher wages before marching to Wat Botum Park and the National Assembly. The workers from three factories – Cambo Handsome, Best One and Yang Fong – are requesting $150 as their ...

Japanese investment in Cambodia is steadily increasing as a result of sharply rising wages in China and other Southeast Asian nations. But experts warned this week that for sustained investment growth—and to avoid driving Japanese companies to other attractive investment destinations such as Burma —the ...

The American Center for International Labor Solidarity has set its sights on the Herculean task of unionizing Cambodia’s civil service, a move that, were it successful, could have profound implications for the country’s political landscape. The term civil service in Cambodia has unusually broad application, referring to bureaucrats, ...

Swedish fashion retailer H&M has hit back at accusations that it fails to pay adequate wages to workers in Cambodian factories making its clothes – and says instead that the situation would be a lot worse if it didn’t source from the country ...

Workers from bankrupt plush-toy factory First & Main are still owed money after the Ministry of Social Affairs auctioned $200,000 worth of factory equipment for just $21,000, a labor rights advocate said Sunday. More than 350 workers were left stranded when the US-owned teddy bear factory closed in ...

China’s rising wages and shrinking export demand are forcing manufacturers to relocate to neighbouring Southeast Asian nations and many that remain are seriously considering moving, a foreign trade official from the Ministry of Commerce said Buyers have “turned their eyes to manufacturers from Southeast Asian countries”, ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen mockingly declared that opposition pledges to increase the salaries of civil servants marked the arrival of “the season of promises” ahead of next year’s elections, during a speech yesterday. The premier deemed boosting salaries by reducing tax losses attributed to graft unfeasible  because ...