In a speech containing campaign-like rhetoric, Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday spelled out in no uncertain terms the role he had played in securing garment workers a $75 monthly minimum wage last week.

“The minimum wage will reach $80 [including a $5 health bonus] after the negotiations between unions and employers and intervention from the prime minister,” he said at the inauguration of a pagoda in Kampong Cham province’s O’Reang-ou district.

During Hun Sen’s speech, which included fresh calls for villagers to vote for him and talk of his sons – one of whom, Hun Many, is standing in July’s National Election – the prime minister said the ruling CPP had overseen many minimum wage increases.

“And we will keep negotiating... wages in the garment sector and in some cases provide a higher wage,” he said, adding the minimum wage had increased from $30 per month in the 1990s.

The government last week announced the garment wage would be increased from $61 to $75 and credited Hun Sen with intervening to increase that figure from $73.

The prime minister added that garment workers also derived other benefits, citing the shuttered Yung Wah factories in Kandal previous – where 7,000 workers were paid a reported $6.5 million earlier in the year – as an example.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mom Kunthear at [email protected]