By Matt Blomberg
PHNOM PENH, Oct 1 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Cambodia’s move to scrap some employee bonus and holiday entitlements is likely to hurt the poorest workers already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic, labour rights groups and unions warned on Thursday.
Higher rates of pay for night shift workers and the moving of public holidays that fall on weekends to weekdays – which is currently mandatory – will be abolished by changes to the labour law drafted by the government last month.
“The working class rely on these benefits to survive,” said Ou Tepphallin, head of trade union the Cambodian Food and Service Workers Federation.
“They are in a state of crisis already – and now we have another move to support employers while workers get nothing,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Cambodia has recorded no deaths and less than 300 coronavirus infections, according to government health officials, but the pandemic has hurt its vital garment industry – which employs about one in 20 Cambodians – and the tourism and construction sectors, cutting thousands of jobs.
The proposed changes to the country’s labour law will attract new investors to Cambodia and encourage existing ones to consider ramping up production, potentially creating thousands of jobs, said to Ken Loo, secretary general of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia.
“This is the fastest way to increase employment without a significant increase to capital investment,” said Loo, who is also an advisor to Cambodia’s labour ministry.
Fears that thousands of low-income casino, hotel and factory workers will have their pay slashed under the amendments were overblown, he said.
“If an employer is unable to attract night-shift workers without paying a premium, they will have to amend their offer – simple,” he said.
“It’s a free market – supply and demand – and that is essentially what we want.”
Heng Suor, a spokesman for the Southeast Asian country’s labour ministry, declined to comment.
The labour ministry previously said it wanted the new rules to be introduced this year.
