More than 100 workers at a Phnom Penh garment printing factory protested yesterday after they returned from the Khmer New Year holiday to find their workplace shuttered.

The locked doors of Meanchey district’s Fu Kuy factory, which employs more than 120 people, were management’s only indication to workers of its bankruptcy and closure, said Ly Veng, president of the firm’s branch of the Workers Union Federation.

“Closing without issuing notice makes it difficult for workers, it means they will lose benefits and job seniority,” Veng said yesterday. “We ask the ministries concerned in the matter to take care of this.”

Va Yuvathana, chief of the Labour Dispute Office at the Ministry of Labour, said ministry officials went to the factory in an attempt to resolve the situation yesterday, but were not able to find any management representatives.

“We will create a commission tomorrow to figure out how to settle this,” Yuvathana said. “We will examine . . . whether we have to auction [factory property] off to pay the workers,” he added.