From Killing Fields to Sweatshops: A New Start for Cambodia?
covering burma and southeast asia
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Magazine

ARTICLE

From Killing Fields to Sweatshops: A New Start for Cambodia?


By Philip Robertson FEBRUARY, 2000 - VOLUME 8 NO.2


RECOMMEND (287)
FACEBOOK
TWITTER
PLUSONE
 
MORE
E-MAIL
PRINT
(Page 3 of 3)

For instance, how will workers and their unions be able to participate in these monitoring and compliance visits, and comment on the findings of the ILO trained inspectors? What training will be provided to workers so that they know how the system will work, and how to access it so that their legitimate grievances are addressed? What documents will be made public? In cases of factory non-compliance, how will corrective measures be enacted and who will make sure the factory owners follow the recommendations? And to return to the perennial question in Cambodia, what role will money, corruption and impunity play with respect to ILO-trained inspectors and sanctions against violators by the Cambodian MOL and Ministry of Commerce (which distributes garment export quota to manufacturers)? All these issues are still being tackled in ongoing negotiations between the US government, the ILO, and the AFL-CIO which should be concluded in the next month. Breaking new ground always brings new questions and risks, and there will certainly be bumps in the road as this innovative project starts up. The approach is a new one for the global economy, because the project provides rewards for taking the "high road" towards respect for workers and basic rights rather than the low road of cut-throat competition where the winner is the country that cuts the most corners by violating worker rights and tolerating dangerous and dirty factories. For the women workers in Cambodia’s garment factories, it is a start towards what they hope will be a new deal that will end the pattern of continued exploitation and firings, and offer them something that they not yet enjoyed: justice and respect. Philip Robertson is a labor activist based in Bangkok. The views expressed in this article are his own.


« previous  1  |  2  |  3  | 

more articles in this section