Development and assistance for labor rights and labor unions

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 ...

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 ...

The widespread use of short-term contracts in Cambodia’s garment industry has come under fire in a new report, which looks at ongoing issues with the practice at H&M supplier factories amid pledges of reform. A Short-Term Solution, which was released by Swedish NGO Fair Action, uses ...

A group of independent unions say they will push for a new monthly minimum wage of $207 for garment workers when three-way negotiations with the government and factories begin in earnest next week. Keep reading ...

After almost two years of arguments and negotiations, Myanmar has set its first minimum wage at K3600 (US$2.80) per day. The milestone was met with ambivalence by factory owners, and trepidation by garment workers, who fear many jobs will be axed to afford the move. The ...

British rights activist Andy Hall has been charged with criminal defamation in Thailand after he researched a report that alleged labour abuses at the Natural Fruit Company, a large Thai pineapple wholesaler that supplies the EU. The Bangkok south criminal court decided on 24 August to indict the ...

Cambodia National Rescue Party president Sam Rainsy yesterday told unionists that his party supports a minimum wage increase in the Kingdom’s garment industry to $180 per month in 2016. Speaking to more than 100 Free Trade Union (FTU) representatives from about 60 factories at FTU’s headquarters ...

International labor groups and multinational companies have urged the government and recalcitrant garment manufacturers in Myanmar to accept a daily minimum wage of 3,600 kyats (US$3.20), a proposal put forward by the National Minimum Wage Committee last month. The US-based Fair Labor Association, a coalition of labor ...

At least 500 workers from three garment factories in Cambodia demonstrated on 14 July outside the Labor Ministry in the capital Phnom Penh, demanding that government officials intervene in their quest for better working conditions and food and transportation subsidies. The workers from two factories in Kandal ...

The International Labor Organization (ILO) has found a slight improvement in Cambodia’s garment factory working conditions, although issues of overtime and occupational safety and health continue, according to its latest report released on 8 July.   The ILO’s Better Factories Cambodia (ILO-BFC) Program report said it ...