About 220 workers at the shuttered Kingsland Garment factory in Phnom Penh yesterday received a combined $230,000 in wages and benefits owed to them after their bosses fled in late December, workers and the government said.

Soeung Mon, a Ministry of Social Affairs director, said workers were paid as promised after two vendors, New Archid and Saramax, pledged $145,000 early this month and the factory’s assets were sold.

Workers received between $400 and $1,800 each, Mon added.

Dave Welsh of the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, which helped workers be paid, said it was “a triumphant day”.

“The government insisted that 16 workers who had already taken severance pay... also be included, which was fine, but it meant workers were paid about 94 per cent [of what they were owed],” he said.

Worker Nhek Chenda said she was very happy. “I worked at Kingsland for six years.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Mom Kunthear at [email protected] and Shane Worrell at [email protected]

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