Click on the article in Khmer to zoom in
Showing posts with label Cambodian workers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cambodian workers. Show all posts
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Requirements for foreign company to use 80% of Khmer work force - Editorial by Ven. Hok Savann
Click on the article in Khmer to zoom in
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Sacrava's Political Cartoon: Chea Vichea's Day
Cartoon by Sacrava (on the web at http://sacrava.blogspot.com)Monday, May 04, 2009
Sam Rainsy addresses workers on International Labor Day
May 1, 2009 - MP Sam Rainsy addresses workers on International Labor Day in front of the National Assembly in Phnom Penh.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Workers find themselves at center of political tug-of-war
SRP MPs Sam Rainsy and Son Chhay leading a group of demonstrating factory workers on this 02 May 2008 photo (Photo: SRP)Friday, 16 May 2008
Written by Kay Kimsong and Khouth Sophak Chakrya
The Phnom Penh Post
The leaders of the country’s three main political parties all went to the workers on May Day this year, appealing to garment factory employees and dockworkers alike for their ballot.
“If you like my leadership, vote for the CPP,” Prime Minister Hun Sen told hundreds of workers gathered at the Sihanoukville port, promising job security if his ruling Cambodian People’s Party was returned to power and calling on factory owners in the country’s strike-prone garment sector to treat their workers like “partners for life.”
Elsewhere, opposition politicians with the Sam Rainsy, Human Rights and Norodom Ranariddh parties were touting higher wages and labor rights in exchange for support in what many observers say will be a one-sided election favoring the CPP.
But despite being the clear favorites, Hun Sen’s embrace of the working classes signals a change in political strategy and marks the rise of industrial workers as a powerful constituent, observers say.
“This is the first time they’ve done this – they see opportunity in the growing number of workers. Before their numbers were small and the workers did not attract the attention of the political parties,” said Hang Puthea, executive director of the Cambodian election monitor Nicfec.
“It is important for the parties to attract workers because their numbers have increased by so much,” he told the Post.
“Each party believes that if they can attract those workers, the parents of those workers who live in the countryside and their friends will also vote for that party,” he added.
A simple calculation reveals exactly how big the worker vote could be: the garment sector alone employs an estimated 350,000 people, each supporting family at home that could multiply the total voter strength by three, five or even ten times, depending on the size of each employee’s family and circle of friends.
Some 8.1 million voters have been registered so far.
The total number of industrial workers is thought to be more than 500,000, monitors say.
“If 50,000 votes can win a seat in parliament, then half a million votes will swing 10 seats,” Puthea said.
That is no small number for Cambodia’s opposition trying to claw back some power from the CPP, which looks set to be able to form a government on its own this year, shedding a coalition government agreement that has been in place since the early 1990s.
All three minor parties are trading on Cambodia’s rising cost of living to give them the leverage they need to swing the workers’ vote.
Double-digit inflation has hurt most the country’s urban workers who during the past year have found themselves priced out of many staple goods.
Aside from promised wage hikes, the opposition has vowed to end pricing monopolies over fuel and curb living costs.
“If you vote for the CPP, you will get only one sarong, but if you vote for Sam Rainsy you will get another $20 [wage] increase,” Sam Rainsy, leader of his self-named party, told some 3,000 garment workers gathered at his party’s headquarters in Phnom Penh on International Labor Day.
Meanwhile, Norodom Ranariddh’s party spokesman Muth Chantha reminded workers that the prince, who remains in exile amid a host of legal problems, attracted investment to Cambodia, creating jobs.
All the pre-election wooing, however, has done nothing to convince labor activists that party leaders have their interests at heart.
Chea Mony, who took over the reins of Cambodia’s largest labor group, the Free Trade Union, in 2004, told the Post that “political parties have been cheating workers since 1993.”
“Every song they sing is sweet,” he said, urging workers not to be lured into a false sense of hope by the rhetoric.
“Consider each party’s policy platform on labor issues before deciding which one to support in the elections,” he said.
Nicfec’s Puthea also said trying to win the workers’ vote was a bit of shrewd international spin-making on the part of the parties.
“If any party can convince the workers to vote for them, it shows that the party supports international labor rights and raises its profile” outside of Cambodia,” he said.
“If you like my leadership, vote for the CPP,” Prime Minister Hun Sen told hundreds of workers gathered at the Sihanoukville port, promising job security if his ruling Cambodian People’s Party was returned to power and calling on factory owners in the country’s strike-prone garment sector to treat their workers like “partners for life.”
Elsewhere, opposition politicians with the Sam Rainsy, Human Rights and Norodom Ranariddh parties were touting higher wages and labor rights in exchange for support in what many observers say will be a one-sided election favoring the CPP.
But despite being the clear favorites, Hun Sen’s embrace of the working classes signals a change in political strategy and marks the rise of industrial workers as a powerful constituent, observers say.
“This is the first time they’ve done this – they see opportunity in the growing number of workers. Before their numbers were small and the workers did not attract the attention of the political parties,” said Hang Puthea, executive director of the Cambodian election monitor Nicfec.
“It is important for the parties to attract workers because their numbers have increased by so much,” he told the Post.
“Each party believes that if they can attract those workers, the parents of those workers who live in the countryside and their friends will also vote for that party,” he added.
A simple calculation reveals exactly how big the worker vote could be: the garment sector alone employs an estimated 350,000 people, each supporting family at home that could multiply the total voter strength by three, five or even ten times, depending on the size of each employee’s family and circle of friends.
Some 8.1 million voters have been registered so far.
The total number of industrial workers is thought to be more than 500,000, monitors say.
“If 50,000 votes can win a seat in parliament, then half a million votes will swing 10 seats,” Puthea said.
That is no small number for Cambodia’s opposition trying to claw back some power from the CPP, which looks set to be able to form a government on its own this year, shedding a coalition government agreement that has been in place since the early 1990s.
All three minor parties are trading on Cambodia’s rising cost of living to give them the leverage they need to swing the workers’ vote.
Double-digit inflation has hurt most the country’s urban workers who during the past year have found themselves priced out of many staple goods.
Aside from promised wage hikes, the opposition has vowed to end pricing monopolies over fuel and curb living costs.
“If you vote for the CPP, you will get only one sarong, but if you vote for Sam Rainsy you will get another $20 [wage] increase,” Sam Rainsy, leader of his self-named party, told some 3,000 garment workers gathered at his party’s headquarters in Phnom Penh on International Labor Day.
Meanwhile, Norodom Ranariddh’s party spokesman Muth Chantha reminded workers that the prince, who remains in exile amid a host of legal problems, attracted investment to Cambodia, creating jobs.
All the pre-election wooing, however, has done nothing to convince labor activists that party leaders have their interests at heart.
Chea Mony, who took over the reins of Cambodia’s largest labor group, the Free Trade Union, in 2004, told the Post that “political parties have been cheating workers since 1993.”
“Every song they sing is sweet,” he said, urging workers not to be lured into a false sense of hope by the rhetoric.
“Consider each party’s policy platform on labor issues before deciding which one to support in the elections,” he said.
Nicfec’s Puthea also said trying to win the workers’ vote was a bit of shrewd international spin-making on the part of the parties.
“If any party can convince the workers to vote for them, it shows that the party supports international labor rights and raises its profile” outside of Cambodia,” he said.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Sam Rainsy Party celebrated International Labor Day with more than 9,000 workers from Phnom Penh
Workers holding a sign reading: "With very high gasoline price, workers and civil servants cannot live"
Workers holding a sign reading: "Workers want half price for goods, no half less to eat"
May 1, 2008: Sam Rainsy Party celebrated International Labor Day where more than 9000 factory workers from around Phnom Penh gathered at the Party Headquarters (All photos: SRP)
Sam Rainsy exchanging a joke with workers
More than 9,000 workers join the International Labor Day celebration at the SRP party headquarter.Monday, November 26, 2007
Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand faced with rapes, abuses, discriminations, and deportations
Foreign workers needed but alienated
November 26, 2007
Subhatra Bhumiprabhas
The Nation (Thailand)
November 26, 2007
Subhatra Bhumiprabhas
The Nation (Thailand)
Immigrant workers from neighbouring nations, especially Burma, are seen as troublemakers, unlike those from the West.
Looking over some 1,000 stories dating back to 2004 in 13 local newspapers, researcher Kulachada Chaipipat found the news media too often portrayed migrant workers as statistics, victims, criminals and vectors of disease, rather than human beings with lives and hopes and dreams.
Kulachada cited headlines such as "Fear aliens will take over flat building in Mahachai", "Ten thousand migrants raid police sports stadium", "Unlawful Burmese workers intercepted and arrested", "Foreign workers found dangerous", "Number one among diarrhoea cases", "Hunt for killer of six Burmese workers: Chumphon deputy police commissioner confirms murderer is not Thai", "Tsunami effects cause rise in crime", "Aliens losing jobs turn to thievery" and "Point to illegal migrants as a cause for people's panic".
Kulachada last week revealed the findings of a three-year project between 2004 and 2006 on local news-media coverage of migrants and mobile-population issues.
The forum was hosted by the Thai Journalists Association, the Migrant Working Group and the Canada South East Asia Regional HIV/Aids Program-me.
Most editors and reporters she interviewed, however, dismissed claims the news media itself played a role in creating and stereotyping negative images of foreign workers from Burma, she said.
"They said negative attitudes [towards migrant workers and neighbouring countries] already existed in society. It wasn't the media that placed such attitudes in society," Kulachada said. She spoke with 11 editors and reporters of eight newspapers.
However, she found many negative words were unnecessarily used in coverage to "separate" migrant workers from others. "For example, words like "unlawful", "dangerous" and also the word "migrant" had been repeatedly used to describe workers from Burma, Laos and Cambodia," she said.
Though agreeing that there are both positive and negative sides of migrant workers, editors saw them as more negative than positive.
Editors believe readers paid little attention to migrant workers; some of them said news media attention of their plight would upset readers, Kulachada said.
Editors said migrants should not be given equal space in newspapers. Most reports about migrants over the past three years were about government policy toward them in terms of national security and crackdowns on undocumented migrants.
Human rights are not considered in local reporting about migrants, Kulachada said, citing only 50 cases of human rights violations against migrant workers out of 1,189 stories she researched.
Publishing comments from those with negative attitudes towards immigrants was another issue that made reports unbalanced, she added.
Editors conceded, but defended reporters for, limited sources, saying they could not communicate in migrants' languages.
Speaking in Thai, a Cambodian worker Sia, spoke at the forum. She said her employer had raped a colleague.
"When learning she was pregnant, the employer called police to arrest her. The woman filed a petition to the Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok but failed," Sia said.
The woman was eventually paid two months' salary as compensation and was deported.
Sa, a Mon worker in Bangkok, said she was forced to flee her male employer. "I worked as a nanny for his child and he called me to take care of the baby in his bedroom," said Sa, who has been working in Thailand for 12 years.
Most editors, however, believed human rights of migrant workers had improved, compared with a decade ago and before the government introduced registration, Kulachada said.
Some editors said the image of migrants had changed from abused to potential abusers of the system, she added.
The media sees reports as two sides of a coin that depends on readers' views, Kulachada said.
Looking over some 1,000 stories dating back to 2004 in 13 local newspapers, researcher Kulachada Chaipipat found the news media too often portrayed migrant workers as statistics, victims, criminals and vectors of disease, rather than human beings with lives and hopes and dreams.
Kulachada cited headlines such as "Fear aliens will take over flat building in Mahachai", "Ten thousand migrants raid police sports stadium", "Unlawful Burmese workers intercepted and arrested", "Foreign workers found dangerous", "Number one among diarrhoea cases", "Hunt for killer of six Burmese workers: Chumphon deputy police commissioner confirms murderer is not Thai", "Tsunami effects cause rise in crime", "Aliens losing jobs turn to thievery" and "Point to illegal migrants as a cause for people's panic".
Kulachada last week revealed the findings of a three-year project between 2004 and 2006 on local news-media coverage of migrants and mobile-population issues.
The forum was hosted by the Thai Journalists Association, the Migrant Working Group and the Canada South East Asia Regional HIV/Aids Program-me.
Most editors and reporters she interviewed, however, dismissed claims the news media itself played a role in creating and stereotyping negative images of foreign workers from Burma, she said.
"They said negative attitudes [towards migrant workers and neighbouring countries] already existed in society. It wasn't the media that placed such attitudes in society," Kulachada said. She spoke with 11 editors and reporters of eight newspapers.
However, she found many negative words were unnecessarily used in coverage to "separate" migrant workers from others. "For example, words like "unlawful", "dangerous" and also the word "migrant" had been repeatedly used to describe workers from Burma, Laos and Cambodia," she said.
Though agreeing that there are both positive and negative sides of migrant workers, editors saw them as more negative than positive.
Editors believe readers paid little attention to migrant workers; some of them said news media attention of their plight would upset readers, Kulachada said.
Editors said migrants should not be given equal space in newspapers. Most reports about migrants over the past three years were about government policy toward them in terms of national security and crackdowns on undocumented migrants.
Human rights are not considered in local reporting about migrants, Kulachada said, citing only 50 cases of human rights violations against migrant workers out of 1,189 stories she researched.
Publishing comments from those with negative attitudes towards immigrants was another issue that made reports unbalanced, she added.
Editors conceded, but defended reporters for, limited sources, saying they could not communicate in migrants' languages.
Speaking in Thai, a Cambodian worker Sia, spoke at the forum. She said her employer had raped a colleague.
"When learning she was pregnant, the employer called police to arrest her. The woman filed a petition to the Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok but failed," Sia said.
The woman was eventually paid two months' salary as compensation and was deported.
Sa, a Mon worker in Bangkok, said she was forced to flee her male employer. "I worked as a nanny for his child and he called me to take care of the baby in his bedroom," said Sa, who has been working in Thailand for 12 years.
Most editors, however, believed human rights of migrant workers had improved, compared with a decade ago and before the government introduced registration, Kulachada said.
Some editors said the image of migrants had changed from abused to potential abusers of the system, she added.
The media sees reports as two sides of a coin that depends on readers' views, Kulachada said.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
[Aussie's] Cochlear orders multicultural staff to speak only English at work
Huy Kha … has made complaint. (Photo: Bob Pearce)October 31, 2007
Andrew West, Industrial Relations Reporter
The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
THE Australian company famous for supplying hearing implants to the world has ordered its multicultural workforce to speak only English or sacrifice a pay rise.
More than half the manufacturing workers at Cochlear's Lane Cove plant came from non-English speaking countries but are under instructions to speak only English at work.
A complaint to be lodged today with the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board says Cochlear management had threatened to deny pay rises to staff who spoke foreign languages in the workplace.
One worker from Cambodia, Huy Kha, alleges that in June his manager ordered him to "speak English at all times".
At another meeting earlier this month, Mr Huy said, the manager told him it was company policy to speak English, even though none of his colleagues have any interaction with the public.
"The team leader said that if we are found speaking a foreign language we will fail our assessment to get a higher classification," he wrote in his complaint to the board. "We [were] told that if you don't speak English you'll get a warning."
Cochlear's chief executive, Chris Roberts, said he was unaware of Mr Huy's complaint but the company had "a policy of mutual respect in the workplace". Dr Roberts said: "So if there is a bunch of people in a group, they should not speak a language that cuts others out."
The Manufacturing Workers Union, which covers about half of Cochlear's workforce, estimates that two-thirds of the manufacturing staff are from non-English speaking backgrounds, including many from China, Vietnam and Cambodia.
The union's assistant secretary, Tim Ayres, said English should be the common language of the workplace but argued Cochlear management was intimidating staff, who in four ballots earlier this year - two run by the company - overwhelmingly rejected a proposed non-union employment agreement.
"We believe English language skills are very important so management and the employees can communicate effectively," Mr Ayres told the Herald. "But it's not like these people are working in a call centre or dealing with customers. They are working on a production line, really putting in a lot for Cochlear, and this is just bullying.
"When it comes to assessing staff for higher classifications, they should be judged on their work skills, not their social skills."
Cochlear is locked in a bitter dispute with its workforce and the union after management decided to move staff onto individual common law agreements when the collective agreement expires next Tuesday.
Dr Roberts said the complaint was a combination of a misunderstanding and a "beat-up" by the union, which was trying to increase membership at the plant.
Mr Ayres, however, suspects the company wants to monitor discussions among its increasingly restive staff. "This is management control for its own sake."
More than half the manufacturing workers at Cochlear's Lane Cove plant came from non-English speaking countries but are under instructions to speak only English at work.
A complaint to be lodged today with the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board says Cochlear management had threatened to deny pay rises to staff who spoke foreign languages in the workplace.
One worker from Cambodia, Huy Kha, alleges that in June his manager ordered him to "speak English at all times".
At another meeting earlier this month, Mr Huy said, the manager told him it was company policy to speak English, even though none of his colleagues have any interaction with the public.
"The team leader said that if we are found speaking a foreign language we will fail our assessment to get a higher classification," he wrote in his complaint to the board. "We [were] told that if you don't speak English you'll get a warning."
Cochlear's chief executive, Chris Roberts, said he was unaware of Mr Huy's complaint but the company had "a policy of mutual respect in the workplace". Dr Roberts said: "So if there is a bunch of people in a group, they should not speak a language that cuts others out."
The Manufacturing Workers Union, which covers about half of Cochlear's workforce, estimates that two-thirds of the manufacturing staff are from non-English speaking backgrounds, including many from China, Vietnam and Cambodia.
The union's assistant secretary, Tim Ayres, said English should be the common language of the workplace but argued Cochlear management was intimidating staff, who in four ballots earlier this year - two run by the company - overwhelmingly rejected a proposed non-union employment agreement.
"We believe English language skills are very important so management and the employees can communicate effectively," Mr Ayres told the Herald. "But it's not like these people are working in a call centre or dealing with customers. They are working on a production line, really putting in a lot for Cochlear, and this is just bullying.
"When it comes to assessing staff for higher classifications, they should be judged on their work skills, not their social skills."
Cochlear is locked in a bitter dispute with its workforce and the union after management decided to move staff onto individual common law agreements when the collective agreement expires next Tuesday.
Dr Roberts said the complaint was a combination of a misunderstanding and a "beat-up" by the union, which was trying to increase membership at the plant.
Mr Ayres, however, suspects the company wants to monitor discussions among its increasingly restive staff. "This is management control for its own sake."
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
2,000 Cambodian workers in South Korea
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Heng Soy
SRP MP Keo Remy said during an interview on 18 June that South Korea had accepted 2,000 Cambodian workers up until now. Following his recent visit to South Korea, Keo Remy said that Cambodian workers in South Korea have not met major problems based on his meeting with them. Keo Remy said that up to now, 2,000 Cambodia workers are providing their labors in South Korea. He added that South Korea is also interested in Cambodia railways system for transporting goods from rural areas to the capital, and that South Korea will participate in the repair of Cambodia’s decrepit railways system. Keo Remy said that following the visit, Nhem Vanda, the delegation leader, will send over all the issues to Prime Minister Hun Sen for his review.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Three illegal Cambodian immigrants to Thailand dead, and 23 hurt in road accident
Three dead and 23 hurt in road accident
Saturday June 16, 2007
MANIT SANUBBOON
Bangkok Post
Saturday June 16, 2007
MANIT SANUBBOON
Bangkok Post
Prachin Buri - Three illegal immigrants including a 10-year-old boy were killed and over 20 others injured yesterday in a car chase that ended in a deadly crash, police said. A total of 26 Cambodian nationals including a 10-year-old and a 4-year-old were travelling in a pick-up truck when the crash occurred at a sharp bend on Prachintakham road in Muang district.
Police said they did not know who was chasing the pick-up, but the injured said they thought it may have been police or other state authorities.
Two of the passengers died at the scene while the 10-year-old was pronounced dead at hospital. The pick-up truck was badly damaged in the accident.
According to the injured, they had sneaked into the country via Sa Kaeo province and met the pick-up truck driver at a meeting point at Rong Klua market.
They paid 2,500 baht each to the driver who was supposed to drop them in eastern provinces.
When the vehicle was in Kabin Buri district, they discovered that they were being followed by two pick-up trucks. Before the crash, the two trucks allegedly fired several warning shots and the driver sped up to try and outrun them.
''When we reached the bend, the car spun off the road and crashed,'' said a 25-year-old Cambodian man from Siem Reap who sustained minor injuries.
He was going to work in a farm in Rayong's Pluak Daeng district where he was due to be paid a daily wage of 130 baht for his labour.
He said 10 of them were in the passenger cabin in the front and 16 others in the back of the truck. Most of them were returning to old jobs while the others were looking for work.
San, 31, from Siem Reap, who lost her son in the crash, said she had gone back to Cambodia to collect her son and four-year-old daughter.
She said that she worked at a pineapple farm in Chon Buri with her husband and earned a combined wage of 300 baht a day.
''I went back on Sunday to take them to Chon Buri, so we could be a family again. When the car crashed, I could only grab the girl,'' she said.
Police said they did not know who was chasing the pick-up, but the injured said they thought it may have been police or other state authorities.
Two of the passengers died at the scene while the 10-year-old was pronounced dead at hospital. The pick-up truck was badly damaged in the accident.
According to the injured, they had sneaked into the country via Sa Kaeo province and met the pick-up truck driver at a meeting point at Rong Klua market.
They paid 2,500 baht each to the driver who was supposed to drop them in eastern provinces.
When the vehicle was in Kabin Buri district, they discovered that they were being followed by two pick-up trucks. Before the crash, the two trucks allegedly fired several warning shots and the driver sped up to try and outrun them.
''When we reached the bend, the car spun off the road and crashed,'' said a 25-year-old Cambodian man from Siem Reap who sustained minor injuries.
He was going to work in a farm in Rayong's Pluak Daeng district where he was due to be paid a daily wage of 130 baht for his labour.
He said 10 of them were in the passenger cabin in the front and 16 others in the back of the truck. Most of them were returning to old jobs while the others were looking for work.
San, 31, from Siem Reap, who lost her son in the crash, said she had gone back to Cambodia to collect her son and four-year-old daughter.
She said that she worked at a pineapple farm in Chon Buri with her husband and earned a combined wage of 300 baht a day.
''I went back on Sunday to take them to Chon Buri, so we could be a family again. When the car crashed, I could only grab the girl,'' she said.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
