CAMBODIA: H&M investigates mass faintings at factory

26 August 2011
Petah Marian
Just-style.com

H&M has said that it has not found any plausible causes for a series of mass faintings that have taken place in a Cambodian factory making its clothes.

The statements follow local press reports that a total 284 workers at an M&V International Manufacturing site fainted on Tuesday and Thursday. According to the reports, workers smelled something bad coming from the shirts.

A spokesperson for the retailer told just-style today (26 August) that it was aware of the incident and that the "government, local authorities and International Labour Organisation have done investigations and have not found any plausible causes so far".

The spokesperson said H&M has also carried out an initial probe, with local staff immediately visiting the affected factories for an inspection and interviews with workers, but said the cause is "difficult to establish".

Occupational safety a concern in Cambodia's garment factories – UN report

(NewDesignWorld Press Center) - Although compliance by Cambodian exporting garment factories with national and international labour standards is generally good, areas such as discrimination and occupational safety and health remain a concern, according to a new United Nations report.

The report on working conditions in Cambodia’s Garment Sector was released today in the capital, Phnom Penh, by the UN International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Better Factories Cambodia programme.

It reflects data compiled over a six-month period from November 2010 to April 2011 from 186 of the 276 factories registered with the programme, which was set up in 2001.

“Compliance levels generally remain high, although some areas of concern remain, particularly regarding discrimination, overtime, and occupational safety and health,” stated a news release issued by the programme.

Cambodian shoe factories under the spotlight

Hospitalized workers after mass fainting (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

August 2, 2011
ABC Radio Australia

German sportswear giant Puma has been on the back foot recently after a report the company commissioned showed a litany of abuses at one of its subcontractors in Cambodia.

The company commissioned the investigation after more than 200 workers fainted at a shoe-making factory in Phnom Penh.

Correspondent: Robert Carmichael

Speaker: Chuon Momthol, trade union leader; Catherine Vaillancourt-Laflamme, International Labour Organisation

Click here to listen to the audio program (Windows Media)

CARMICHAEL: In April around 200 workers at a factory that makes shoes for Puma fainted and were taken to hospital. A few days ago another 49 fainted too.

The April incident drove Puma to commission an independent report from a US-based non-profit called the Fair Labor Association, and the results made for uncomfortable reading in Germany.

The subcontractor, a company called Huey Chuen, employs around 3,300 workers, and was found to have failed in dozens of areas.

Puma’s new dizzy spell

An employee of Hung Wah (Cambodia) Garment Manufacturing recovers at a hospital after a mass fainting episode yesterday. (Photo by: Heng Chivoan)

Tuesday, 26 July 2011
David Boyle and Kim Yuthana
The Phnom Penh Post

Sportwear giant Puma says it is taking a second outbreak of fainting at one of its Cambodian shoe suppliers “very seriously” after 49 workers at the Huey Chuen factory were hospitalised in Phnom Penh yesterday morning.

The clothing and shoe brand said it was taking immediate ‘‘interim measures’’ to address the incident, which occurred a few days after a report released last week by the Fair Labour Association found multiple breaches of labour laws had contributed to about 104 workers fainting at the same factory in April. The company did not detail the measures to be put in place.

The FLA report found that a possible exposure to hazardous chemicals – including toluene, a substance banned by Puma – along with excessive working hours and high temperatures in the factory, had caused mass fainting on April 9 and 10.

CAMBODIA: Probe promised after garment workers faint

25 July 2011
Leonie Barrie
Just-style

An investigation has been ordered after nearly 100 garment factory workers fainted at the Hung Wah (Cambodia) Garment Manufacturing factory in Phnom Penh's Dangkor district.

Local media reports suggest chemicals or exhaustion are to blame, and the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training has vowed to investigate.

Earlier this year another mass fainting hit the headlines when several hundred workers were rushed to hospital after collapsing at Puma shoe supplier Huey Chuen, in Phnom Penh's Dangkor district.

Faintings at factory in Cambodia put big brands under pressure

Jul 23, 2011PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - One by one, the workers slumped to the floor of their garment factory in Cambodia's capital, overcome by the sweltering heat, long shifts and choking stench of chemicals.

The exact cause of the sudden illness overcoming about 300 workers at the Hung Wah textile factory this week is unclear. The factory owners said nothing as dozens of employees were treated in hospital.

"I looked around me and everyone was collapsing, everyone was scared and crying," worker Yan Chornai, 23, said from her hospital bed.

The faintings at Hung Wah, which produces clothing for Western brands, were not isolated incidents but part of a growing trend in the "sweatshops" that provide vital revenue for one of Asia's poorest countries.

Second fainting incident at Puma factory in Cambodia sparks alarm

Jul 26, 2011
DPA

Phnom Penh - German sportswear manufacturer Puma AG has said the hospitalization of 49 workers who fainted at the factory of a Cambodian subcontractor was being taken 'very seriously.'

Monday's incident came weeks after more than 200 workers fainted over a two-day period in April at the same Huey Chuen factory in Phnom Penh, prompting Puma to commission an independent report into working conditions.

A report into the April faintings by US-based non-profit group Fair Labor Association (FLA), found an array of violations of national law, international practices and Puma's own rules.

The investigation found 'multiple hazardous chemicals' in use at Huey Chen, including toluene, which Puma explicitly bans its subcontractors from using.

Union Wants Answers for Raft of Fainting Episodes

Chea Mony, president of the Free Trade Union said this year alone, some 2,300 workers have reported fainting in five Cambodian factories for reasons that are not fully explained.

Monday, 25 July 2011

Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh

“We think this is not enough for each worker. She eats a pack of rice with an egg, which lacks calories. The workers face a lack of vitamins.”

The head of one of Cambodia’s biggest independent union’s said Monday he wants a government investigation into the fainting spells of thousands of workers this year.

Chea Mony, president of the Free Trade Union, sent letters to the ministries of Health, Environment and Labor, requesting they look into conditions at factories that are harming the health of workers.

This year alone, some 2,300 workers have reported fainting in five Cambodian factories for reasons that are not fully explained, he said.

There's a story behind people who make your clothes

March 14, 2011
By Rachel McGrath
Ventura County Star

In Cambodia, he showed up at a factory in Phnom Penh that made jeans where he met a Cambodian woman called Nari, who earned $50 a month working to support her family of eight. She also was training to become a beautician so she could have her own business, he said.

A young man who traveled the world to find out how his clothes were made told a lunchtime audience in Camarillo last week that the experience taught him how interconnected the lives of people are.

Kelsey Timmerman from Indiana, who published the book "Where Am I Wearing? " in the fall of 2008, was speaking as part of the series of public talks hosted by the Martin V. Smith School of Business and Economics at CSU Channel Islands.

"Ninety-seven percent of our clothes are not made in the U.S.," he said. "Think about what the lives are like of those who make your clothes."

Timmerman, who has a degree in archaeology, said he was working as a scuba dive instructor in Florida when he decided on a whim to travel to Honduras to see where a T-shirt he was wearing was made.

"I Don't Want to Be Famous. I Want Our People to Get Enough Rice": The Messenger Band Interview

Suffer from Privatization - The Messenger Band

The Messenger Band, made up of former garment workers, gives concerts that highlight the difficulties of factory work and other women's issues in Cambodia. (Photo: Moritz Ege)

Click here to visit the Messenger Band website

For additional photos of the Messenger Band, click here

Friday 12 March 2010
By Anne Elizabeth Moore
t r u t h o u t | Interview

Do you want to become a famous pop star?

Vun Em: A lot of people ask me, why don't you go to the TV and sing the song and become a famous star? I don't want to become a famous star. I don't want to be a famous person, but I want my song, I want my information to become recognized by the big people, and be respected. And provide the rights to those people. For me, I don't want to be famous, but I want our people here to get enough rice, enough food to eat, and they have the right to demand their rights.

"My name is Saem, and the name of my group is the Messenger Band," the singer more formally known as Vun Em explains. We are in Phnom Penh's Meta-House, where four members of the six-member Messenger Band are about to give a quick a cappella concert to the reporters ex-pats, and tourists gathered.

It's not their usual venue. The Messenger Band was formed by the Cambodian NGO Women's Agenda for Change in 2005 to bring the concerns of the young women who move to the city to earn money for their families back to the provinces. They write songs in the traditional folk style, and choreograph moves to accompany their laments, and villagers are often riveted: the subjects of these songs are their daughters, their nieces, their friends.

The subjects of the songs are members of the Messenger Band. All former or current garment factory workers themselves, the varying group of women that perform as the band are well versed in the issues that affect women in Cambodia. "We are tired but we say nothing," one song goes. "We are hard working and much of this money I earn is dollars to help my mother."

But the message of the band is clear: "The voice of garment workers must be used to shout to tell all Cambodian women that to be a servant is very difficult," they sing in tones unheard in American pop tunes, and all the more affective because of it. "We have no freedom and no rights."

Vun Em, the 25-year-old front person for the band - at least for the night - took a few moments before their late January concert to answer a few questions.

How long have you been doing the band?

Vun Em: I work in the band for five years, start from 2005.

And you used to work in the garment factory?

Vun Em: Yes, I worked in the factory from - I started in 2000, until 2005. And from 2005 until now, I work with the band.

You are with the band full time?

Vun Em: Yes.

How do you make a living working full time with a political band in Cambodia?

Vun Em: I have some support from the donors. Women's Agenda For Change, they created this big group and they provide some support to Messenger Band. Not much, just small.

Enough?

Vun Em: Yeah.

Why do you think it's important for garment factory workers to start a band?

Vun Em: I think it's really important because I can really speak out about the situation when I was working in the factory. I saw a lot of problems with the workers in the factory. I think that it's good if we write a song that educates the people. And also do advocacy through song.

What did you see in the factories that you think needs to be changed?

Vun Em: Oh, that's a good question. First, I want to see change, like see the garment worker respected by the law and supported by the government and the investors. It's important for investors: they have to follow the law in Cambodia and they have to respect worker's rights.

How is the law not being followed in Cambodia?

Vun Em: A lot of [ways], like the forced overtime and the low wage. They have to ask permission for when they have to take leave or when they get sick. It's really difficult to take leave. And sometimes, they are dismissed by the company because they cannot go to work, like when they get sick, they have to go to the hospital. But the factory owners, they don't allow them to go. Some factories, when the workers fall unconscious in the factory, when they awake from unconsciousness, they tell the worker that, "you have to promise that you will not [lose consciousness] again, otherwise, you lose the job."

So, if people faint, they have to promise that they won't faint again?

Vun Em: Yes, they have to promise. They cannot unconscious again. Otherwise you will lose the job. And the workers are so scared, they just promise the leaders.

Are you nervous being an activist in Cambodia?

Vun Em: Hmmm, a little bit. But if we don't stand up, no one hear the story. And that's why we have to stand up and share some information about the poor people in Cambodia. We have to stand up and speak out, otherwise we die.

Yes, the workers, they welcome us and they tell us, Oh I have heard your song, through the radio and sometimes through the TV - but not often on the TV.

Do you want to become a famous pop star?

Vun Em: A lot of people ask me, why don't you go to the TV and sing the song and become a famous star? I don't want to become a famous star. I don't want to be a famous person, but I want my song, I want my information to become recognized by the big people, and be respected. And provide the rights to those people. For me, I don't want to be famous, but I want our people here to get enough rice, enough food to eat, and they have the right to demand their rights.

As garment factories close, more and more women enter the sex industry by working at the karaoke bars. You have a song about this.

Vun Em: When the factories close down, some girls will go to become entertainment workers, and HIV will spread out around. But why don't [the NGOs] care about their living life? Why they don't care about their family? Why they don't care about the security of those people? Why they care only about HIV? [She starts to cry.] I don't know, I don't understand.

We also care about HIV, but you have to think about the lives of the people, not only HIV. If the people don't have enough food to eat, if they don't have enough education, if they don't have good health, how can they prevent themselves from the HIV? They don't have time to think about HIV, they only have time to think, I need food, I need food. All the time.

What can people in the United States do to support the factory workers?

Vun Em: I want them to support health care to garment workers, and the poor people in Cambodia. Because health care and food is really, really needed.

One more thing: I want to let those people in the United States be aware that the worker situation in Cambodia - it's really bad. And I want the investors ... to respond to the workers, and our laws in Cambodia. Not only put pressure to our government, put pressure to our people here. You have to respect our law and our people. And also you can support our country and our government and our people, not only judge. You have to learn, you have to understand what is the real situation in Cambodia.
---------------
"A Karaoke Girl's Life" (song written by the Messenger Band):

I have had bad fate in my life since I was born; my life has been different from others. Always facing unhappiness, I bear the family's burden; I bear the shame and sell my voice.
I became a karaoke girl I sing in the karaoke bar I don't want to be here but I am poor. Please don't blame me for being bad I have tried to live in this darkness.
Though I work day and night and never resting, I am still poor I was in debt to the owner. If I take rest, they reduce my money.
The tears of a karaoke girl I am living as a slave, without freedom. I was mistreated by the owner and forced to serve clients.

"Voice of Garment Workers" (song written by the Messenger Band):

The voice of garment workers must be used to shout to tell all Cambodian women that to be a servant is very difficult. They curse, they blame us and say we are bad girls, but we have no freedom and no rights.
We are all garment workers, we live in bad conditions, we struggle with difficulty, we are tired but we say nothing, we are hard working and much of this money I earn is dollars to help my mother.
The song that we sing is about the real life of garment workers, please pity us and consider the life of garment workers. How we are suffering? We are faced with suffering and problems because the factory owners exploit us.
When the workers are in trouble, who can help to solve the problems? Where is justice? When I need you, why do you ignore me?

Hundreds of Factory Workers Faint on Job

Workers taken to the hospital (All Photos: Koh Santepheap)
A worker is carried out of the factory

By Chiep Mony, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
14 October 2009

Chhuon Malay was still feeling shaky Tuesday night. She waited until the rain stopped before walking from her rented apartment in a Phnom Penh suburb to get a fruit shake—a luxury she said she can rarely afford but that she hoped would bolster her strength.

The 28-year-old garment worker still felt weak from Monday, when she and around 400 coworkers fainted on the job at the Willbes Cambodia Co., Ltd., garment factory in the capital’s Dangkor district.

“My health used to be strong, but at that time I fainted unexpectedly,” she told VOA Khmer, drinking her fruit shake. “I am afraid that my health would be weak in the future.”

The mass fainting—caused apparently by noxious fumigation chemicals—underscores an ongoing problem in Cambodia’s factories, a leading union representative said after the spell. As many as 30,000 workers have passed out on the job in factories in the last decade.

The weakened workers were sent to various state hospitals and private clinics in Phnom Penh. Chuon Malay found herself at the Samphup Angkor clinic, having lost consciousness for six hours. She returned to her home later that night.

“I’m still tired until now,” she said.

The following day, the factory closed its doors. On Wednesday, it was open again, but dozens of workers walked off the job, claiming they were still too ill to work.

Willbes human resource manager Sem Sokunthea said the factory allowed ill workers a day off on Wednesday without a dock in pay, after doctors confirmed their ill health.

“We regret that unexpected event,” Sem Sokhunthea said. “We also regret that our company lost a lot.”

The fainting spell cost the factory thousands of dollars in lost production and wages, as well as medical treatment, she said.

The factory had employed an unnamed company to fumigate two weeks ago, she said, to prevent insects from damaging clothes.

Pok Vanthat, director of the Ministry of Labor’s health department, said the fumigations had caused the fainting. The company had agreed to renovate its factory to avoid further problems and will be fined if it fails, he said.

At least two other companies this year had fumigated, he said, and he urged companies to find ways to minimize harmful effects of pesticides and other chemicals.

“Now we are working on this,” he said. “The minister has taken care to disseminate this information to all of the factories, to understand the impact of chemicals.”

However, Chea Mony, head of the Free Trade Union of Workers in the Kingdom of Cambodia, said the problem is nothing new.

Between 20,000 and 30,000 workers have passed out on the job since 1997, he said.

“If the government doesn’t take care of the health of workers, we will lose our labor force,” he said.

Cambodia’s garment exports are a major economic driver, and the country’s 500-some factories employ more than 300,000 workers. Most are young women and earn a minimum monthly salary of $50.

Cambodia's garment workers hit by recession, too [-Factory workers would rather stay in Phnom Penh than return home as suggested by Hun Sen]

But for young women supporting families, meager wages are still much sought-after

Outside the Legends factory in Phnom Penh, garment factory workers alight from the motorized cart they ride to work. (Elyse Lightman photo)

Elyse Lightman, a former resident of Concord, Mass., is a Trustee and Director of Special Projects for the Harpswell Foundation, which provides educational opportunities for disadvantaged young people in Cambodia. She has been travelling to Cambodia for the past five years from her home in Brooklyn, NY.

March 10
By Elyse Lightman Boston Globe (Massachusetts, USA)

PHNOM PENH -- At 5:00 a.m., when Hap Saly and the four other young women with whom she lives wake up, the sky is still dark, and just a few early risers are outside sweeping their steps and cooking rice. The air, usually heavy, is cool and light. The roommates roll up their brightly colored sleeping mats, blankets, and pillows with pink fringe on the edges, and stack them in the corner of the room, raggedy teddy bears on top. Using a plastic cup and a bucket filled with cold water, they take turns washing in the tiny bathroom with the missing doorknob.

Five years ago, Hap Saly, now 25, came to Phnom Penh to work at the Chinese-run Eternal Way garment factory. As a child growing up in Tramung Chrum, a remote village without running water or electricity, sixty miles northwest of Phnom Penh, there was no school for her to attend. She studied Cham -- her ethnic minority’s language -- with her grandfather, the imam, but she never learned how to read or write in Khmer and didn’t learn basic math.

Some of the young women with whom Hap Saly lives left their village after a few years of schooling, some with none, in search of an income. Sen Nary, 20, studied up to grade 3. “My parents are so poor,” she said. “I needed to find a job to support them and to help my younger siblings study.”

While the monthly income for one third of Cambodians is $30, and the average is $50, garment factory workers make at least $55 a month, typically $77 with overtime. Hap Saly used to be able to save as much as $50 per month to send home to her families, but recently, as the prices of food, electricity, water, and rent have increased, that number has plummeted to $10-15.

And yet, even with garment factory workers’ dwindling savings, they would rather stay in Phnom Penh than return home. “It’s a small amount that we can save, but during the growing season we can send it to our parents to support them. If we return to our village, we have no work to do,” said Hap Saly.

Just two months ago, the two-story apartment building where Hap Saly lives was filled with thirty other garment factory workers. Now, Hap Saly and her four roommates are the only ones left on their floor -- everyone else lost their jobs. So they switched rooms, from one side of the building to the other. “The old room was too quiet,” they said. The new one overlooks a dirt road dotted with small houses, and a vacant lot littered with rubble.

The scene outside the Legends garment factory. (Elyse Lightman photo)

Thirty years after the end of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, when a quarter of the population, including the entire educated class, was killed, Cambodia is just beginning to recover. And so it is especially troubling that the previously robust garment industry -- which provides two-thirds of Cambodia’s export earnings -- is taking a hard hit from the global financial crisis. The Ministry of Commerce said on Tuesday that from January 2008-9, garment export revenue fell from $250 million to $70 million, and the Free Trade Union reported that over 20,000 garment factory workers have already lost their jobs this year, and 10,000 more are in danger of being unemployed as more factories threaten to close.

Garment factory workers’ savings will last them, on average, about one or two months in Phnom Penh. Some young women will return to their villages; some will seek jobs in other factories; some will become beer girls (where women wear outfits promoting beer brands, often going home with their customers at the end of the evening); some will join the sex industry; some will be construction workers -- jobs which are demoralizing, unsafe, or both.

Hap Saly says that when the first young women from her village began leaving to work at garment factories, some villagers looked down upon them and made assumptions about the work they would be doing. But now the girls are valued more because people realize they are able to support their families. Hap Saly says she doesn’t know of anyone from her village who works in the sex trade, but this is an anomaly for Cambodia.

The garment factory women are the breadwinners for their families, and the heaviness of their responsibility is palpable. But they are still animated and youthful. As they prepare to leave for work they peer into tiny hand-held mirrors and comb their long hair. The walls of their room are covered in photos of them at weddings, wearing make up and elaborate outfits, far from their usual pajama sets. Their single possession is a bottle of skin-whitening lotion that costs $0.50; they share it among the five of them.

Most young women who work at the factories don’t know how long they will stay in Phnom Penh: until they lose their job or get sick and need to leave. One garment worker who returned to her village told me she would follow in her ancestors’ footsteps, cooking, cleaning, marrying, and raising children. With a wistful look on her face she said, “everything is over.”

Hap Saly, 25, who has worked in Phnom Penh's garment industry for five years. (Elyse Lightman photo)

Hap Saly gathers her uniform -- a yellow vest that says “Legends, Ltd.” on the sleeve, and an ID card. Referring to Eternal Way, the factory where she used to work, she claps her hands together, as if shutting the pages of a book: “Closed.” As a Cham Muslim, she usually wears a krama around her head, but, at least for now, she replaces it with the signature pink scarf of the garment workers.

Possessing a refreshing amount of ambition and hope, a quality hard to find in many of these young women with limited opportunities, Hap Saly confided in me that her dream is to learn how to sew and to set up a small shop in her village, perhaps training other girls in the skill.

For information about the Harpswell Foundation, please visit their website, at www.HarpswellFoundation.org. To learn how you can contribute to the Passport blog, contact the Globe's assistant foreign editor, Kenneth Kaplan, at k_kaplan@globe.com.

‘Messenger Band’ Sings for the Voiceless

The Messenger Band (Photo: Rick Valenzuela)

Messenger Band members, from left: Vun Em, Hin Kunthea and Kun Sotheary

By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Washington
14 October 2008

Click here to listen to the Khmer audio program

Click here to listen or download The Messenger Band songs

The Messenger Band, a group of female singers who speak of living conditions for many of Cambodia’s socially sidelined groups, is gaining in popularity, as Cambodians face high inflation and tough working conditions, even in a growing economy.

“There are a lot of problems that women as workers are facing, but they cannot speak out,” explained Vun Em, the band’s coordinator, as a guest on “Hello VOA.” “These songs come from the workers’ hearts, to tell the public what problems the workers have.”

The band, comprised of factory workers and initiated by the Womyn's Agenda for Change, has released one CD and performed in Hong Kong during a World Trade Organization meeting. The group calls itself “the first all female protest song folk singers in the history of Cambodia.”

Inspiration for their songs, which range from topics such as globalization, factories, drug abuse, domestic violence, and prostitution, come from speaking to people to “know the real situation,” Vun Em said.

Kun Sotheary, a member of the band who was also a guest on “Hello VOA,” said the two volumes of songs the band has produced were composed by workers from many different places, while the next songs will be composed by band members themselves.

“We will go to many places and continue to work with workers,” she said. “We are workers too.”