Law and labour reform

An interesting yarn by David Lynch that tells of a push to reforms labour laws in Cambodia's sales pitch: Sweatshop-free products.

“Garment factories in Cambodia … aren't gloomy pits of Dickensian misery. Instead, Cambodia is seeking to become the rare Third World country to develop economically while treating workers reasonably well.”

As an industry, it is a lynchpin for today’s economy. Yet up until the mid-199s, Cambodia didn’t have a garment industry.

Today 230 garment factories it employs 265,000 people, and its $1.9 billion in exports represent roughly 80% of the country's total export earnings.

“No other country depends as much on its garment industry as Cambodia. And no other garment industry so depends upon the United States, which buys two-thirds of the shirts, trousers and jackets made here.”

To carve out a market niche in a highly competitive free market as global tariffs shift and quotas diminish, Cambodia is billing itself as sweatshop-free.
Cambodian labor law stipulates a $45 monthly minimum wage and a six-day, 48-hour workweek with no more than two hours of daily overtime. Compare that with yesteryear.

“In the 1980s and 1990s, factory conditions here, including widespread compulsory overtime, were typical for a developing country.
“In 2000, Nike pulled out of Cambodia temporarily after a British documentary found underage workers in one of its contractor factories.
“Last year, two labor union officials, including a member of the ILO's advisory committee, were killed in what Amnesty International suggests were politically motivated shootings.
“Amid a 2-year-old ban on demonstrations, unauthorized labor protests have been violently disrupted by a government-linked student group known as the "pagoda boys," the human rights group says.

Unfortunately the real question is: who cares? Whether Cambodia’s push succeeds might ultimately depend upon whether American consumers demand more than low prices from their clothing stores. Do the issues of human rights have a stronger pull than the demand of consumer purse strings.

"The really big question is: Do consumers care?"

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