About 200 former Mfone employees gathered in front of the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh yesterday in protest over claims that Thaicom, the failed telco’s parent company, had paid Thai staff even though Cambodian staff were still owed compensation.

Noun Sam Ath, a former sales executive, shouted over a loudspeaker that the demonstrating workers represen-ted more than 1,000 staff and asked that the Thai ambassador urge Thaicom to pay compensation to all workers.

“We protest because . . . we did not receive any seniority compensation in accordance with the law,” Ath said.

Mfone employee representative Nim Sonyda said former staff had filed a complaint with the embassy on April 4, asking the ambassador to intervene in the dispute.

“It is unfair, because we are the same staff; why did they separate Khmer staff who were not eligible to receive compensation from Thai staff who were eligible to receive?” Sonyda said.

Former Mfone national technical director Yous Mara said his friend, a Thai staff member, had told him that Thai workers had received their seniority pay earlier this month.

“If we got compensation, as  Thai staff did, we would not be demonstrating,” Mara said.

Cambodian Labour Confed-eration conflict-resolution mediator Ean Kimhun said: “Cambodian staff have been victims from the beginning of this company’s operations because they had lower salaries, even though they were working in the same positions, and then receive nothing during the time of bankruptcy.”

Thaicom did not respond to an email request for comment yesterday.