More than 100 workers of the reportedly bankrupt Chung Fai Knitwear factory gathered on National Road 2 yesterday in the hope that Prime Minister Hun Sen would see them while journeying to Kandal province and intervene in their dispute over unpaid wages.

Workers’ representative Choun Kiri said the group took the action after the owner of the company disappeared without paying them.

“We hope the prime minister will look at what we are doing and help us, because until now we’ve had no solution in our efforts to get paid our final salary,” Kiri said.

Late last month, the workers protested outside the Phnom Penh Municipal Court demanding it issue an injunction barring the owner from selling the factory equipment, and ensuring that any proceeds from such a sale would go to pay salaries. The court subsequently ruled in the workers’ favour.

Chea Socheat, the chief of administration at Chung Fai Knitwear, said the owner had disappeared and had not been in contact. “That’s why it is difficult to find a solution for them,” Socheat said.

Separately, more than 200 workers from the Chhang Voy factory in Phnom Penh’s Russey Keo district protested yesterday. An employee who declined to be named said the workers’ July salaries remained unpaid even as the company was preparing to move location.