"Employees Laid Off by Bus Company Linked to Tycoon Protest Years-Worth of Allegedly Stolen Wages", 28 April 2023

… more than a dozen employees of Giant Ibis Transport, a bus company which appears to be owned by tycoon Kith Meng’s Royal Group, gathered in Phnom Penh to demand they receive severance and seniority payments they say they are legally owed after being laid off several years ago when the company suspended operations due to the pandemic…

Morady and around 80 co-workers were laid off ... At the time, the company gave laid off workers the choice of being removed from their positions permanently while receiving $1,000 in seniority benefits without severance payment or else waiting to be reinstated without receiving any payment, a violation of labor law, the workers and multiple labor rights activists point out. The suspended workers are each legally owed approximately $4,000 in benefits and lost wages, Morady says…

The protestors also allege the company has discriminated against union members by refusing to reinstate them on fair terms, privileging non-union members. Of the company’s 30 laid off union employees, just six have been offered their jobs back. They were forced to sign new contracts requiring them to forfeit their previously owed benefits, Morady said.

… Khun Tharo, program manager for the Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights (CENTRAL), said the bus company had violated labor law since the company did not appear to have had approval from the Ministry of Labor for a years-long suspension of its workers. Under Cambodian law, suspensions longer than two months require permission from the government’s Labor Inspectorate, Tharo said…