Labor law

Over 1 million temporary passport holders in Thailand will not be allowed to renew their expiring residency documents, issued between 2009 and 2013 as part of a national verification process. Instead, they are being told to forfeit their legal status, and apply for “pink cards” that ...

The National Assembly of Cambodia on 4 April passed a contentious trade union law, just hours after a group of pro-union demonstrators and Daun Penh district security guards clashed violently outside.“They did not explain clearly what their intentions [were to retain articles in the law],” ...

The head of the National Assembly’s legislation commission of Cambodia said he hoped to have a controversial draft union law passed “very soon” after the latest round of feedback from unions and employers during a public workshop at Parliament on 9 March. Cambodian People’s Party parliamentarian ...

Some of the country’s top business leaders laid out their main concerns with a controversial draft union law during a meeting with CPP lawmakers on 18 January, including a stipulation that would let only 10 people form a union at a workplace. The bill, which would ...

Cambodian recruitment agencies are drawing up more extensive training programs for maids being sent to Malaysia following a lifting of a ban on the practice in December. However, it remains unclear by what standards the programs created by the agencies – many of which have been ...

Employers have requested to meet with a bipartisan committee reviewing the draft trade union law in a bid to air their own concerns about the controversial legislation. So far, the joint committee has only addressed unions’ concerns about the law threatening their freedom to organise – ...

The first meeting of a bipartisan committee to work out criticisms of the controversial draft trade union law resulted in what unions considered meagre concessions, although the opposition hailed the process’ cooperative spirit. According to Sok Eysan, spokesman for the ruling Cambodian People’s Party and chief ...

Cambodia’s Labour Minister Ith Samheng made a lengthy defence of the draft trade union law on 30 December, claiming it would stabilise the Kingdom’s troubled labour relations, even as he pledged to find the “mastermind” behind recent protests in the Svay Rieng town of Bavet. Speaking ...

The government has agreed to delay the passage of a controversial law governing the trade union sector, announcing it would set up a national workshop to work out the legislation’s thornier clauses on 15 December. The decision comes after repeated protestations from a coalition of 23 ...

Some 25 Lao labour inspectors were trained on new labour law tools in Vientiane to help them educate workers and managers about their workplace rights and obligations on 26 November in Vientiane. The tools and related training programme were developed by the government with support of ...