About 200 factory workers protested on Phnom Penh’s Veng Sreng Blvd. for about an hour Tuesday morning after they learned that their struggling factory had removed valuable equipment from its premises.
Hundreds of workers protested outside a Phnom Penh garment factory alleging insufficient compensation for more than 1,000 workers who were laid off.
A new study called for a tripling of the garment sector’s minimum wage to $588 a month, which one GMAC representative characterized as a “crazy” proposal.
Tuesday’s meeting, held by video conference, was the first of four weekly sessions planned for the tripartite negotiations, according to a document signed by the Labor Minister Ith Samheng.
Hammered by years of debt, drought and desperation, Cambodia’s smallholder farmers have long supported themselves by sending family to work in Phnom Penh factories. But the pandemic has upended the arrangement, forcing unemployed workers back to failing farms.
Covid-19 outbreaks of hundreds of workers are continuing to hit garment factories in and out of Phnom Penh, as factories navigate whether to suspend operations or keep up production.
About 2,000 factory workers blocked National Road 6 over the weekend in Kampong Cham province, asking that they be given Covid-19 tests, be allowed to quarantine at home, and be paid 50 percent of their wages, according to provincial officials.
Afraid of getting locked down inside a bicycle factory, an estimated 2,000 workers fled out of rear entrances, overwhelmed a deputy governor asking them to stay, carried their motorbikes through a pond, and scattered.
Phnom Penh’s public markets will reopen from Monday, City Hall has announced, as workers protested on Veng Sreng Blvd. near former red zones despite the further easing of restrictions, this time over lack of pay.
The gates of the Grand Twins International garment factory were crowded with security guards, drivers and other Choam Chao III residents hoping for a vaccine Tuesday morning, as workers looked to vaccinations to address their health and employment concerns.
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