"Six months on, over 1,000 factory workers await compensation", 01 July 2020

More than 1,000 garment workers from two factories in Kandal province are waiting on a joint committee of Labor Ministry and local officials to decide their fate after going six months without pay.

Dignity Knitter factory and Eco Base factory in Takhmao City, both of which have the same owner, suspended operations … and promised to compensate employees for their months of back pay, plus half pay in the months following suspension, according to union representatives employed there.

Ministry and union officials said the Labor Ministry had formed a joint committee with provincial authorities last month to sell off sewing machines and other equipment at the factories in order to provide compensation to workers…

Siang Yot, a legal officer at CCAWDU, said that a resolution had been delayed because the Labor Ministry had run into a dead end after discovering that the former owner said he had handed over the company to someone else…

Phin Sophea, a CCAWDU representative who was employed at Dignity Knitter factory for 14 years, said that about 400 to 500 workers had gathered outside the factory … waiting to hear the committee’s findings, but were instead told that the inventory was not yet completed…

Leng Srey, 45, a CCAWDU representative at the Eco Base factory who had also worked there for 14 years, said all of the company’s 224 employees had not been paid since January, although the factory did not suspend operations…