The Arbitration Council has ordered more than 700 workers at the Wei Xin garment factory to end a week-long strike they have staged in protest against a spate of issues they have with the company over contracts and payment.

A decision handed down on Saturday  by the council orders the employees to return to work or face immediate dismissal.

Workers have been striking over nine points of a dispute with the company including its alleged failure to regularly pay overtime, provide pay slips and provide contracts that are longer than six months.

San Sopha, a legal officer for the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Unions, said yesterday Wei Xin had addressed some of their concerns but continued to be oblique about salaries and was not providing pay slips.

“The important thing that workers demand is that the factory gives pay slips,” he said.

“It’s not so difficult for the company to issue pay slips, but they have not done it so that they can exploit workers because the workers do not know how much money they are supposed to receive,” San Sopha said.

Chrin Noeurn, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Unions, said workers would return to work to show they respect the law. “We want the factory to abide by the law so

we will abide by the ruling,” he said.

Representatives of Wei Xin could not be reached for comment yesterday.