[PHNOM PENH POST]
CAMBODIA will face challenges from the inevitable worker migration that
takes place across the ASEAN region once full economic integration
arrives in 2015, trade union experts said on Friday.
In a
meeting held at the Sunway Hotel in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian labour
community expressed concern about the effect that integration could have
on the Kingdom.
“We will face the flow of workers among ASEAN
member states, so we are concerned about the impact on migrant workers’
rights. That’s a very big issue,” said Vong Sovan, president of the
Cambodian Confederation of Trade Unions. He said it was critical these
issues be addressed before the integration take place.
Som Aun,
president of the Cambodian Labor Union Federation, said Cambodia needs
to make a better effort to facilitate cooperation among the concerned
institutions and government to improve working conditions here, as well
as regulation.
“Our participation in the [ASEAN Services
Employees Trade Union Council] is to recommend to the government that it
protect competition,” he said. Som Aun also called for better training
for Cambodian workers ahead of 2015 so that they could compete with
neighboring countries for jobs.
Christopher Ng, regional
secretary of UNI Asia & Pacific Global Union, said the integration
would impact workers’ standard of living according to their
circumstances in each ASEAN country. Therefore, Cambodia must benefit as
much as it can from that integration.
“The migration of workers
is a very important issue. ASEAN has to discuss policy to ensure that
the migration of workers would be carefully regulated,” he said. “The
trade unions here have to be … participating in the discussion regarding
the migration policy.”
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