Unions Want Longer Contracts for Workers

Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
Kandal, Cambodia Wednesday, 26 May 2010

“The workers can’t support these contracts, and the government must settle this problem.”

Labor activists met with international union reps in Kandal province on Sunday as part of a wider effort to improve contracts workers have with their employers.

The educational meeting was an effort to convince workers to refuse short-term labor contracts in favor of longer guarantees.

More than 100 garment factory workers met with union representatives from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal and Belgium.

Of Cambodia’s 400 legal and illegal factories, about 60 percent of them apply short-term contracts for workers, said Ath Thum, president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union, during the campaign.

Short-term contracts put pressure on employees, who can easily lose their jobs, he said. They push employees to work longer hours and dissuades them from joining the trade unions that can protect them, he said.

“We explained to them the inconvenience of the short-term contract,” he said, adding that they were encouraging workers to “gather in one voice to claim the elimination” of such contracts. “If employers continue to use these contracts, it means they abuse the law.”

Cambodia’s $2.4-billion garment sector employs more than 300,000 workers, with wages ranging between $30 to $100 per month. The industry has struggled to compete with other nearby countries, where labor can be cheaper or more skilled or both.

Ath Thum said the reliance on short-term contracts meant limited experience for workers, adding to the the lack of competitiveness. Ath Thum said he plans to lead a campaign against the contracts in garment industrial zones in Phnom Penh and the provinces of Kampong Speu and Preah Sihanouk.

“I wish for employers to stop from now on the short-term contract,” said On Phally, a garment factory worker from Takeo province who attended Sunday’s meeting.

Yin Serey Vathanak, national project coordinator for the International Labor Organization, said Sunday’s meeting was also to help the government “understand what workers are facing.”

“The workers can’t support these contracts, and the government must settle this problem,” he said.

Koy Tep Daravuth, director of the conflict resolution department of the Ministry of Labor, said short-term contracts were legal and were “no violation” of worker rights.

Still, labor leaders from other countries said Sunday Cambodian unions need to push for the elimination of short-term employment.

“There is a lot of violence, a lot of problems, with short-term contracting,” said Ferdra Vanhuyse, Asia coordinator for the Belgium-based World Solidarity Movement.

She said her organization hopes to bring short-term contracts onto the political agenda at an annual ILO meeting in Geneva that begins in June.

Survey Finds Insecurity in Garment Sector

By Ros Sothea, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
01 June 2009

In a tiny market on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, 19-year-old Mech Ra stood on a recent day counting out her money to buy cheap fish she would have to use in multiple meals. The economic crisis meant her overtime wages have been cut for the past six months, and Mech Ra was doing the best she could with her $50 monthly salary.

“I can hardly survive on my own,” she told VOA Khhmer. “And I have no money to send back home.”

Mech Ra is not alone.

A recent survey by the Cambodian Garment Workers for a Living Wage Committee found that an average worker spends $72 per month, while earning around $79 in the same period, overtime included. Without overtime, the average worker earns $67 per month, the survey found.

“Without overtime, such as during economic downturns, a worker’s earnings are not sufficient to cover basic living expenses,” the committee said.

Choun Momthol, a spokesman for the group, said 70 percent of Cambodia’s factories have cut off overtime work, creating uncertainty in the sector.

“Now workers can’t survive, or they will run away, and thus the stability of the garment industry is not secured,” he said.

The garment sector has been hard hit by the global financial downturn.

Garment exports dropped 38 percent in the first quarter of 2009, a value of $280 million, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

Exports to the US alone fell 48 percent in that period, followed by a drop of 20 percent to Europe and 18 percent to Canada.

Investment in the sector has fallen 61 percent, and more than 60,000 workers have been laid off.

The Living Wage Committee called for wages of at least $93 per month, without overtime, “to ensure that workers can earn enough for a decent living.”

However, Oum Mean, undersecretary of state for the Ministry of Labor, denied the findings of the report and said a demand for higher salaries could be dangerous for the sector.

“It is not really correct to say it has become worse,” he said of workers’ living conditions. “If we make demands that are too high, sometimes they can’t accept this and that will become a disaster.”

The Living Wage Committee will send its study to the Ministry of Labor and companies to ask for salary increases at the end of 2009 or beginning of 2010, when it believes the economy will improve.

Economist Kang Chandararoth, president of the Cambodia Institute of Development Study, who conducted the research, said it would be difficult to ask for better wages at a time of economic crisis. But workers may benefit from the study as long as the economy grows.

Kanwarpreet Singh, a factory owner, said his company hasn’t reduced its orders since the crisis. He didn’t oppose the demand for higher wages, he said, but he would follow Cambodia’s labor law.