GENEVA (ILO News) - The International Labour Office (ILO) today reported "encouraging signs of improvement" of working conditions in some 30 garment factories located in Cambodia which produce apparel for sale in North America, Europe and other developed countries.
The "Third Synthesis Report on the Working Conditions Situation in Cambodia's Garment Sector" provides an overview of progress made by the factories in implementing suggestions made by ILO monitors. The monitoring was done under a technical cooperation project established following an agreement signed in January 1999 by the governments of Cambodia and the United States and amended on 31 December 2001.
"We are pleased to note that this ILO project is directly contributing to the improvement of working conditions for Cambodian garment workers," said Juan Somavia, the ILO Director-General. "This provides sound support for one of the ILO's basic tenets, that employers, workers and governments can work together for the benefit of all concerned."
The latest three-year trade agreement on textile products offers a possible 18 per cent annual increase in Cambodia's export entitlements to the United States, provided the Government of Cambodia supports the implementation of a programme to improve working conditions in the textile and apparel sector, including internationally-recognized core labour standards, through the application of Cambodian labour law.
The plants concerned employ some 21,000 workers of whom about 19,000 are women. Overall, Cambodia has some 200 garment factories employing 200,000 workers and produced about 1.1 billion dollars in garment exports, or about 77 per cent of total exports, in the year 2001. About 820 million dollars in exports were to the United States, according to the Cambodian Development Resource Institute (CDRI).
The basic goal of the monitoring project is to improve working conditions in Cambodia's textile and apparel sector through monitoring, legislation and increasing awareness of Cambodian labour law and core labour standards developed by the ILO.
The report said recent monitoring found no evidence of child labour or sexual harassment in the factories. While some problems remain, the report found improvements in ensuring freedom of association and the right to organize, the correct payment of wages and ensuring overtime is voluntary and within legal limit. The report also found that a substantial number of factories had endeavoured to implement suggestions made by the Project, noting that if these efforts continue "there is room for optimism that the working conditions in those factories will further improve."
Unlike the previous two reports, for the first time this report mixes a thematic overview of progress made with specific indications of progress made by naming individual factories. Under the terms of the project, companies involved weren't named in the first report to provide a grace period for rectifying the reported problems in working conditions. As found in this third report, at the end of this grace period, some improvement was noted in each of the factories. These reports are also of critical importance, as foreign buyers have said they use ILO monitoring information to make purchasing decisions.
The Project Advisory Committee (PAC) - comprising representatives from the Cambodian government, Garment Manufacturers' Association and trade unions - endorsed the third report and said it was pleased that it confirmed that there is no evidence of child labour, forced labour and discrimination, including sexual harassment, in the 30 factories covered by the report.
The PAC also said it was pleased the report showed that improvements were made with regard to the payment of wages and overtime work, although this remained a problem in a number of factories. It noted "some progress has been made in guaranteeing workers' freedom to organize" and expressed the hope that "the efforts undertaken by the parties involved will be a sustained one."
"All members of the PAC restate their full commitment to the continuation of the ILO monitoring project and, again, pledge their full cooperation to the ILO in this regard. While realizing that it remains to be demonstrated that progress made so far will be sustained and sector-wide, we express the hope that the unprecedented efforts towards improving working conditions undertaken in Cambodia will receive the level of support from the US Government, we believe, it deserves."
The PAC has called upon all buyers which source from Cambodia to support the ongoing Project in Cambodia and assume shared responsibility by assisting factories in improving working conditions.
For further information, contact: Lejo Sibbel, Project CTA, Phnom Penh, tel.: +85523/212-847, ext. 105, or ILO Communication, Geneva, tel.: +4122/799-7912, communication@ilo.org.
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