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Garment
workers shield themselves from the sun with leaves as they
protest in Phnom
Penh. (Photo: Reuters)
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Phnom Penh.
Workers at a large Cambodian garment factory that makes clothes for Levi’s, Gap
and other well-known international brands are striking for more pay and better
working conditions.
More than
5,000 workers from the Singaporean-owned SL Garment Processing failed to reach
an agreement with their employers on Tuesday to end an 11-day strike.
Ath Thon,
director of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers, said workers are
demanding an increase in their base pay of $61 a month for eight-hour days, six
days a week.
He said
they want a $5 salary hike and an extra $25 a month for transportation and
housing.
SL Garment’s
website says it makes clothes for more than two dozen international labels that
include J. Crew, Old Navy, Banana Republic, H&M and Levi’s, whose website
in turn lists the company as a supplier.
Cambodia’s
garment industry is the main foreign exchange earner for the poor Southeast
Asian country. Its garment exports in 2011 were worth about $4.3 billion.
“We will
not stop our strike until our problems are solved,” said Teng Ry, 24, one of
thousands picketing the factory on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.
He said
workers were regularly required to work on their one day off a week or denied
sick days and ordered to work up to 16-hour shifts.
Long shifts
are compensated with overtime pay but factory owners are not respecting
Cambodian labor law by requiring employees to work against their will, he said.
Eah Chip
Eang, the personnel manager for SL Garment Processing, said he regretted that a
bargaining session with worker representatives, union officials and social
affairs ministry officials failed to reach an agreement.
He accused
the union representative of refusing to negotiate, and said the workers’
demands were too much for the company to accept, even though the demand for $25
for transportation and housing had been reduced to $10.
He also
denied that his company forces workers to work against their will and up to 16
hours per day, while acknowledging that some do work overtime.
Associated Press
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