Mar 30, 2015
Despite national legislation, poverty leads Cambodian families to help children lie about their age to get a job, while factories turn a blind eye to underage workers. Prospects for the workers, most of them female, are not good, according to Dave Welsh, country director for U.S.-based labor rights group the Solidarity Center. “At the end of their career, at the ripe old age of 35, the majority are left with no savings, no transferable skills and very little education,” he says. “The companies are taking the best years of these young women’s lives and working them to exhaustion.”
Dec 3, 2014
Cotton production involves the most child labor and forced labor in the world, according to the 2014 “List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor” by the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs.
Overall, 126 goods are produced annually by child labor and 55 goods produced through forced labor. Most of the goods, like cotton, are found in common items like T-shirts or are among popular foods, such as melons and rice.
The sixth annual report, released this week, added 11 goods produced with children’s labor: garments from Bangladesh; cotton and sugarcane from India; vanilla from Madagascar; fish from Kenya and Yemen; alcoholic beverages, meat, textiles and timber from Cambodia; and palm oil from Malaysia. Electronics from Malaysia made the list for being produced with forced labor.
Uzbekistan, listed among countries using forced labor, including children, for cotton production, routinely requires teachers to leave classrooms and work in the country’s annual cotton harvest, according to a report the Uzbek-German Forum issued last month.
The lengthy list of goods produced with child labor and forced labor includes garments, fish coffee, shrimp and other shellfish, tea, corn, tobacco and peanuts.
See the full list.
Nov 19, 2014
The Cambodian government announced in recent days it would raise the monthly minimum wage in the textile and apparel industry to $128, an amount workers say falls far short of the amount needed to support themselves and their families and is only $8 above the poverty line.
The new minimum wage also is well below the government’s estimates of wages garment workers need: Late last year, a government-appointed committee announced that a minimum living wage should be between $167 to $177 a month. The minimum wage for garment workers at the time was $80 a month, and even with the increase, Cambodia has among the lowest monthly minimum wage in the industry. Garment-making is Cambodia’s largest industry, accounting for 80 percent of exports.
Tens of thousands of garment workers, the majority of whom are women, have waged a series of mass protests over the past year, demanding a living wage. In January, Cambodian security forces shot into crowds of striking workers, killing at least five, injuring more than 60 and resulting in the arrests and dismissals of dozens of workers and union leaders.
In September, garment workers again took to the streets, demanding $177 per month and directing their protests at global clothing brands. Following the protests, a handful of global brands, including H&M and Zara, said they would pay more for clothing manufactured in Cambodia.
Some 90 percent of the country’s 600,000 garment workers have no permanent contracts and are instead employed under fixed-duration contracts. Without formal employment, workers on contract fear they will lose their jobs if they demand better working conditions. Garment workers on contract also are prevented from accruing seniority and related benefits, and women workers suffer discrimination when taking maternity leave or tending to other family-related duties.
Download the fact sheet, “Cambodia: The Garment Sector and Poverty Wages.”
Jan 7, 2014
In a letter to Cambodia Prime Minister H.E. Hun Sen, the AFL-CIO condemned the Cambodian government’s recent and ongoing violence against garment workers. Calling for an immediate end to the violence and for the release of imprisoned union leaders, the AFL-CIO also is demanding “an independent investigation surrounding the killing and assaults of workers” as well as the withdrawal of legal cases against workers and release of imprisoned union leaders.
On January 2, Cambodian trade union leaders were assaulted and arrested and at least four garment workers killed, with many others injured by security forces at the Canadia Special Economic Zone. Workers have been seeking a higher minimum wage in the garment sector, the nation’s most lucrative industry.
Read the full letter.
Oct 24, 2013
Four case studies examine successful union organizing among workers whose jobs have been privatized, outsourced or contracted out. This Solidarity Center report is part of a multiyear research project, funded by the U.S. Agency forInternational Development, to study the informal economy, migration, gender and rule of law together with research partners Rutgers and WIEGO.
Download here.
