"Case of ‘fled’ casino owner pending", 26 December 2019

Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training spokesman Heng Sour said officials from the Department of Labour are still working on the case of a Chinese employer in Preah Sihanouk province who ran away without paying the workers’ wages.

He said ministry officials were also putting up the company’s property for sale to compensate the workers, but a union official said the company’s debts should be settled first.

…, Chinese and Cambodian employees who worked at the Diamond C Branch II casino in Preah Sihanouk province’s Commune 3 sought police intervention to help solve the case after their employer ran away without paying their wages.

Sour told … that specialists from the provincial Department of Labour had arrived at the casino to investigate. He said if all foreign and Cambodian workers had legitimate employment contracts, the ministry would solve the case for them…

Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW) president Pav Sina said the department’s decision to put up the company’s property for sale could be a lengthy process. The workers, he said, will have to wait a long time and without an income too.

“It takes a long time for the company’s property to be sold before the workers can be paid. The process is complex, so the state must have funds to compensate the workers first.

… Sina attributed the reason a lot of casinos and companies in the province closed down to two factors – the ban on online gambling and foreigners being banned from 10 job categories…