DHAKA: Around 20,000 Cambodian garment workers have joined a strike to demand a US$50 bonus for shunning walkouts over the last three months, a union official said on Monday, in the latest labour dispute to rattle the kingdom's lucrative but troubled garment sector.

Workers at around 30 factories in two special economic zones near the Vietnamese border want the bonus after a union said that two factories had rewarded employees for not participating in the strikes, which routinely cripple the industry.

‘Most of the factories have denied the demand,’ Pav Sina, president of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers, told media, reports The Straits Times.

Keo Kong, the police chief of eastern Bavet city where the factories are based, confirmed the workers were on strike. ‘No solution has been reached’, he said.

BDST: 2029 HRS, APR 28, 2014