At the end of July 2016 workers from the Dongdu Textile factory in Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district sacked nearly 800 employees who had been protesting for over a month to demand better working conditions. The matter was taken to the Arbitration Council, which ordered the company to reinstate the workers, but Dongdu ignored those instructions. A new protest was staged, this time outside the Labour Ministry, in a bid to get their case taken seriously. Workers handed a petition to a Labour Ministry official who told them that their protest was illegal and ordered them to leave. Workers refused saying they had already been fired and did not fear arrest.
The Labour Ministry later said it would invite the company management, workers and representatives of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW) to a meeting to resolve the issue.