"Garment worker minimum wage talks begin, find early disagreement", 7 September 2021

As the first day of a three-way negotiation of the minimum wage for Cambodian garment workers, union and industry representatives have reached an early disagreement on the prospect of a wage increase for 2022.

The tripartite meeting also includes the Ministry of Labour, which hosted the event and presented it by videoconference as a COVID-19 prevention measure…, union representatives had requested a wage increase of $22.20 to yield a minimum monthly salary of $214.20 for 2022. The industry group Garment Manufacturers’ Association in Cambodia (GMAC) is now resisting this, pointing to the impacts of COVID-19 and the need to maintain investors.

Ath Thorn, president of the Cambodian Labour Confederation — one of the country’s biggest unions who attended the Ministry talks — said employers are appealing to job stability over pay increases.

“Employers have said that they were [in difficult conditions] and they requested not to raise the wage in order to maintain labour, stability is better than negotiating the minimum wage,” Thorn said…

Kaing Monika, GMAC deputy secretary-general, also said … session had just been an opening meeting without much technical detail.

“We would show our respective opening stance at the next meeting …,” Monika said, adding that the employer side today just started the discussion by “setting the context” of global, regional and local crises…

“We have considered that the minimum wage should continue to increase depending on the economy, inflation of the market, cost of living of workers,” said Yaing Sophorn, president of the Cambodian Alliance Trade Union…