FOX News : Health

30 November, 2011

Protest for union trio continues


Tep Nimol and Vincent MacIsaac
Wednesday, 30 November 2011 
The Phnom Penh Post
 
Workers and managers at Cambo Handsome 1 garment factory were continuing discussions last night after a fourth day of protest in which union leaders said more than 20 employees were injured in a confrontation with police.

The workers are protesting against the suspension of three union leaders at the Korean-owned facility, which was triggered by the alleged theft by a union leader last Friday of two T-shirts bound for outlets of The Gap.

“The talks could go late and resume in the morning,” David Kim, an executive at Hansoll Textile’s Seoul headquarters, told the Post yesterday afternoon. Hansoll, which has garment factories in seven countries, owns Cambo Handsome Ltd, which has five factories in Cambodia, employing more than 7,000 workers in total, according to Hansoll.

The dispute, at one of Cambo Handsome’s two factories in the capital’s Dangkor district, began after Van Rin, director of the Labour Friendship Union at the factory, was detained by a security guard for allegedly stealing the two T-shirts during his lunch break.

“We have been in touch with The Gap office and we have updated them on the situation,” Kim said. He dismissed reports that more than 20 women had been injured in a confrontation with district police yesterday morning as “a rumour”.

Sieng Sambath, president of the Federation of Friendship Unions, told the Post the women had, in fact, sustained minor injuries after police blocked them from marching from the factory to the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training and Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cabinet to ask for intervention in the dispute.

He said nearly 2,000 workers had marched but were blocked by 50 to 70 police at about 8am. Company officials claim union representatives exaggerated the number of protesters tenfold.

“Police kicked and used electric batons to attack the female workers and block the demonstration,” Sea Sambath said. “More than 20 women were hit on their limbs, back and chest, but none of them sustained serious injuries,” he said.

Dangkor district deputy governor Hem Darith denied police had used force. “The police just pushed the workers not to march because it would cause a traffic jam,” Hem Darith said. “We were obligated to prevent them from marching because it was an illegal demonstration.”

Yesterday was the fourth day of the dispute. Workers are demanding that the theft charge against Van Rin be dropped and that two other union leaders who were subsequently suspended be reinstated. They are also demanding that the company provide them with a transportation allowance and that its security guards be replaced.

Labour Friendship Union vice director Yi Davi, and the vice director of the Cambodian Labor Union, Yi Davuth, were suspended for demanding better working conditions at the factory, union leaders have said.

Cambo Handsome disputes this. “These two unionists were suspended for instigating and threatening other workers to [get] involved in an illegal strike,” Soon Hyung Jo, manager for corporate social responsibility at the company told the Post in an email. They “instigated the workers at Cambo Handsome 1 for many hours by shouting onsite and causing a huge obstruction of our production,” he said. He also disputed workers’ reports that Van Rim had been framed by a security guard who inserted the two Gap T-shirts under the seat of his motorbike.

The conflict with union leaders is not the first at the factory. “The Cambodian Workers Force Democratic Federation Union reported cases of intimidation against its members at the Cambo Handsome 1 garment factory,” according to the Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights compiled by the International Trade Union Confederations.

24 November, 2011

Cambodia: enjoying China’s long shadow

Source: MACLEANS.COM
by Brendan Brady on Tuesday, November 22, 2011

With per capita GDP well under a thousand dollars and a government dependent on foreign aid, Cambodia is among the poorest of the poor in Southeast Asia. But with workers in China, Thailand and Vietnam, demanding and obtaining heftier paychecks, Cambodians are getting a residual lift. Rising wages, labour unrest, as well as currency instability and political turmoil in some cases, elsewhere in the region’s traditional manufacturing centers are improving the prospects of Cambodia, an industrial minnow.

The country’s garment exports have soared in the past year, increasing by nearly 40 per cent, according to the government. Independent observers might put the figure lower, but they would agree with Ken Loo, the secretary general of the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia, when he points to rising wages and work stoppages in China as one of the main causes of Cambodia’s increased share of the market. It’s an important boost in a sector that has been Cambodia’s main engine of growth since the late 1990s, when the country stabilized after years of debilitating civil strife. The garment and footwear industry employs some 400,000 people in this country of just over 14 million (the Gap, H&M and Nike are among the major brands that have suppliers in Cambodia) and account for more than two-thirds of Cambodia’s exports.

But the spillover effects of higher labour costs in China and elsewhere aren’t limited to the textiles sector. Slowly but surely, Cambodia’s industrial horizons are expanding as well, with Japanese companies leading the charge. Minebea, a Tokyo-based producer of micro motors, for example, started operations in Cambodia at the end of last year. The Japanese company began outsourcing manufacturing to Thailand 25 years ago, where it has grown to employ over 30,000 workers. Because of rising wages there, it’s now assembling some of its products in a special economic zone in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Other manufacturers—making headphones and wetsuits, among other products—have opened plants there too, lifting the sophistication of the Cambodian manufacturing sector above T-shirts and sneakers.

“It’s unrealistic to say Cambodia is adding huge value-added chains,” said Peter Brimble, chief economist of the Asian Development Bank in Cambodia. But growing hurdles in Asia’s main production centers are “enough to tip the scales” to attract investor interest in Cambodia. Gordon Peters, an investment adviser with Emerging Markets Consulting, which operates in Southeast Asia, said the number of international companies contacting his consulting firm about business scoping opportunities in Cambodia has grown exponentially this year. More investors are looking at Cambodia as an attractive “long-term bet,” one with limited dividends now but high-growth prospects in the near future, he said.

Observers often criticize the heavy-handed influence of Beijing on Cambodia. But if rising wages in the regional powerhouse can lift business and employment prospects in Cambodia, this is a spell under China’s shadow that the Southeast Asian country is likely to enjoy.

Brendan Brady (www.brendanbrady.com) reports widely on diplomacy, business, human rights and environmental issues across the Asia-Pacific.

Labour Inspectors from BW Countries Touchbased Each Other

By Chea Sophal

Phnom Penh: 24 November 2011,  Labour Inspectors from different Better Work Country Programmes had a short meeting with the BW representative in order to get to know each other in the sideline of Academy on Labour Inspection and Labour Administration in Turin, Italy from 24 October to 4 November 2011.  The representative briefed the team on the update of today garment industry in the global picture and the global Better Work Programme.  Those BW countries include Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Jordan, Lesotho, Haiti, and Nicaragua.  Below are some photos of the meeting.  As part of information sharing, a labour inspector from Malaysia also attended the session.






BFC says enforcement and higher wage helping garment workers

BFC Presss Release
November 24, 2011

Phnom Penh, Cambodia— The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Better Factories Cambodia (BFC) programme today welcomed the government‘s announcement of a $5 monthly increase in garment and footwear workers’ salaries.

“The Royal Government of Cambodia and factory owners are to be commended for this enlightened move which will contribute to the livelihoods of 400,000 workers and help to sustain up to 1.7 million Cambodians” said Jill Tucker, BFC Chief Technical Adviser. She continued: “This raise is an encouraging development in a rapidly evolving environment and could not have been achieved without the committed work of our trade union colleagues advocating on behalf of workers.”

Prime Minister, Hun Sen yesterday announced that the country’s garment and footwear workers are to receive a $5 monthly raise as a contribution to their health and well-being from January 2012 onwards. The move comes shortly after the issuing of new Prakas on Sub-Contract Management in Garment and Textile Industry which for the first time obliges subcontracting garment factories to register with the Better Factories Cambodia monitoring programme.

Article 3 states that: “Only the members of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) that has registered with the Better Factories Cambodia in compliance with the Ministry of Commerce are entitled to the entry into a sub-contract.”

Ms. Tucker said: “Many industry challenges remain, however this pay increase is yet another step in the right direction. It is especially timely that it comes following the Royal Cambodian Government’s concentrated efforts in terms of subcontracting factories. It is vital that we as garment sector actors work together to achieve the highest quality labour standards for each and every worker in all of Cambodia’s factories.”

For more information please contact:
Maeve Galvin
Communication and Advocacy Officer
ILO Joint Projects Office
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Email: galvin@ilo.org
Tel: (855) 23 220 817
Mob: 078 985 563

$5 Minimum Wage Increase

By Chea Sophal
Phnom Penh: On 23 November 2011, The Royal Government of Cambodia announced the $5-Minimum Wage increase to the existing minimum wage of $61.  The wage increase was announced through today Government-Private Sector Forum in Phnom Penh in order to support the living conditions of workers. In return, the government will delay the tax on profit of 1% from the garment and footwear until 2015.

The wage increase will be applied by January 1st, 2012.

21 November, 2011

The penh is mighty

The Cambodian capital is rising out of its troubled past as skyscrapers swank, night spots and mega-malls move in, but behind the facade of progress lies darker realities for some

Bangkok Post, 20 Nov 2011
It's common for Phnom Penh to be compared to "Bangkok as it was a few decades ago", and indeed there is the sense that the city, largely comprised of shophouses, low-rise buildings and temples, is on the metropolis trek. The city's broad promenades and French colonial buildings that led to it being dubbed the "Pearl of Asia" in the early half of the century are giving way to mega-malls and major commercial developments just as Bangkok's streets did.

PHOTOS: CATTLEYA JARUTHAVEE

In a country where the first escalator had its inaugural run to much fanfare only in 2003, development is hurtling forward and there are fears _ as there were in Bangkok 20 years ago _ that it is outpacing the city's ability to cope with the changes.

While Phnom Penh was considered one of the most beautiful cities in Indochina for much of the last century, the capital was ravaged during the 1970s Khmer Rouge era when its population dropped by some estimates to less than 50,000. Following the removal of the regime in 1979, years of civil war would ensue before a gradual recovery began in the 1990s. By the early to mid-2000s, Cambodia was posting economic growth of over 10% a year and investment was pouring in.

Before that burst of development, Phnom Penh had a reputation as the Wild West of the Far East, a view summed up in the subtitle of a popular book about the city at that time, Off the Rails in Phnom Penh: Into the Dark Heart of Guns, Girls, and Ganja.

Now one need only drive into the city to realise how much things have changed since those days. The development boom has given rise to the kind of heady wealth that is common in cities where millions of dollars are being injected into a once-poor nation. Posh nightclubs abound and the newly minted wealthy aren't afraid of flaunting it in the Lexus and BMW cars that fill up the once quaint wide avenues built during colonial times.
Young Cambodians are also becoming increasingly fashion conscious. Design courses are regularly filled with enthusiastic applicants and the city's three main shopping meccas _ the Sorya shopping centre, home to that first escalator, the Central Market and Russian market _ cater to the trend. The Central Market was once Asia's largest and has just completed a US$4.2 million (130 million baht) renovation paid for by the French Development Agency, while the Russian Market is a favourite among souvenir shoppers.
All three offer city shopping experiences comparable to Bangkok's Platinum Mall or MBK.

Sorya, the largest shopping centre in the country at eight stories and 40,000 square metres in size, also appeals to a growing desire to sample new dishes with several fast-food chain outlets. Elsewhere, Col Sanders became a familiar face in the capital only over the last year and Pizza Hut is set to move in soon.
And foreigners are not being left out of the action. Street 240 is lined with expat-owned restaurants, bakeries, clothing boutiques and souvenir shops. Next to it is the city's burgeoning waterfront, brought to life by aerobics groups and break-dancers in the mornings and evenings.

Parks line the riverfront and the government has worked to renovate other green areas in and around the capital.

This shift towards the cosmopolitan and away from the cliched image of a city best known for its unorthodox pairing of rocket launchers and livestock is reflected in the increasing number of tourists visiting Cambodia.
In the first six months of this year, the number of tourists visiting the country rose by 13% from the same period last year to 1.3 million, with the majority of those being from Vietnam, South Korea and China. The country's tourism ministry expects 2.73 million tourists to visit by year's end.

While those numbers include the country's primary tourism destination, Siem Reap, both the airport there and the one in Phnom Penh handled similar arrival numbers during the period.
With the two countries embroiled in a border conflict during the period, Thai tourists accounted for little of this recent jump _ with arrivals sinking by 36.4% year-on-year to 48,136.

The recently completed 32-storey OCIC tower, to date the country's tallest building, is testament to the surface and underlying changes afoot in the city.

The tower was named after a local bank owned by the investors behind Diamond Island, home to one of the city's major new developments, with luxury villas ranging in price from $250,000 to $1.5 million, and plans for a large tower, hospital and shopping mall by the time the project is set for completion in 2015.
It was the bridge connecting Diamond Island to Phnom Penh that collapsed in December of last year, resulting along with a subsequent stampede in 347 deaths.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, urban planner Ching Chhom Mony said that the rush to develop the city without first ensuring proper planning played a role in the bridge deaths.

Development on the island also led to the forced eviction of villagers there, say human rights groups.
They make similar claims about Boeung Kak lake, once a popular spot for backpackers who liked to sip beer and relax along it _ and a booming business area for those supplying the drinks and offering accommodation. A massive real estate project in the city on over 100 hectares of land, much of it on what used to be covered by the lake, has forced over 4,000 families out of the area.

Rights advocates call the trend, which is occurring city and countrywide, the largest forced migration in Cambodia since the Khmer Rouge era.

It's a face of development that takes the sheen off the country's recovery and underscores its challenges. Phnom Penh may be like Bangkok a few decades ago, but much remains uncertain as to where development will see the city a few decades from now.

19 November, 2011

‘Huge changes’ made to new draft union law

David Boyle with additional reporting by Chhay Channyda and Vincent Macisaac
The Phnom Penh Post
Friday, 18 November 2011
A new draft of the trade-union law included “huge changes” that removed all major controversial aspects of the legislation, including criminal sanctions, a union advocate said yesterday. Dave Welsh, country director for the American Centre for International Labour Solidarity, said the Ministry of Labour was to be commended for heeding criticisms of a law that started off as what could have been “the most draconian trade union law in the region”. “But they’ve dropped everything that was of concern, and they’ve expanded the scope of it to include informal-sector workers and domestic workers. “All criminal sanctions against trade-union leaders have been dropped, and it will be much easier to form a trade union,” Welsh said.  This meant farmers, garbage collectors and nannies would now have the right to unionise, he added. 

This latest version, the fifth draft of the law, was being reviewed in the Council of Ministers, Welsh said.  Unions and civil-society groups heavily criticised provisions in the previous draft, including articles that allowed union representatives to be sent to prison for as long as three months and fined as much as 10 million riel if they were found to have forced workers to join unions. Mouen Tola, head of the labour program at the Community Legal Education Centre, said he had yet to see the latest draft but said the previous version allowed worrying penalties to be taken against unions that failed to submit things like financial reports on time.  

“In the previous draft, there was still the article about suspension of the union certificate and the cancellation of the union certificate if it failed to fulfil its obligations,” he said, adding that this contravened International Labour Organisation conventions that Cambodia had ratified.  US embassy spokesman Sean McIntosh told the Post earlier this week that during a visit last month, US Special Representative for International Labor Affairs Barbara Shailor had urged Cambodia to abide by its commitments to the ILO during the drafting of the trade union law.  Cambodia has ratified 12 ILO conventions including number 87 – Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention. The International Labour Organisation was unable to respond to inquiries by press time.  Oum Mean, secretary of state at the Ministry of Labour, declined to comment.

World Toilet Day 2011: When it comes to poo, culture matters, too!

18 Nov 2011  Source: AlertNet Malteser International - Germany Cologne. Going to the toilet may seem a normal, everyday act for some, but it is a daunting task for millions of people around the world – for whom a toilet is nowhere to be found. The lack of private, clean spaces to “take care of business” is a serious problem with dire consequences for people’s health and well-being. That’s why, on the occasion of World Toilet Day, Malteser International, the Order of Malta’s relief service for humanitarian aid, calls for increasing access to sanitation that is not only adequate, but that also takes cultural aspects into consideration.   According to a 2010 WHO report, 2.6 billion people worldwide lack basic sanitation. “These people have to worry every day about how to relieve themselves without feeling ashamed”, says Arno Coerver, regional water, sanitation & hygiene (WASH) coordinator at Malteser International. “They have to wait until night-time to defecate, or hide in the bushes. Needless to say, that is not only difficult, but also dangerous – especially for women and children, or for those who are ill”. In each of its project countries, Malteser International looks for cost-efficient, technically simple and safe sanitation alternatives, which can be adjusted to meet the needs of different cultures and environments. In Myanmar, for instance, the community decided, together with the local staff, to build double-pit latrines, a type of composting toilet which uses two separate waste collection pits alternatively. “When deciding on what kind of toilet house to build, the community came up with the idea to make a light structure that can be easily shifted from one pit to the other”, Coerver says. In Cambodia, the communities supported by Malteser International were also encouraged to select and build their own latrines. “Consequently, you see a whole range of different latrines: some with brick walls and bathing facilities, others with simple cabins made of bamboo and grass”, Coerver explains. Along with building toilets and sanitation facilities, Malteser International also works to raise awareness and promote hygienic practices in the communities it works in. “Hand-washing continues to be the best, most cost-effective method to prevent diarrhoea and other infections”, says Roland Hansen, head of the Asia & Haiti department at Malteser International. Lack of sanitation and hygiene causes 2.4 million deaths annually; it kills more than 4,000 children every day, and contributes to malnutrition. The United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals call for the proportion of people who lack access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation to be halved by 2015. “Of all the Millennium Development Goals, sanitation is among the areas where the least progress has been made so far”, Hansen says. “We need to give sanitation the attention it deserves.” More information on Malteser International’s WASH programme can be found here. More information about World Toilet Day can be found at the World Toilet Organisation’s website.   Attention editors: Roland Hansen, head of the Asia & Haiti department at Malteser International, is available for interviews. Contact through Malteser International’s headquarters at +49 (0) 221 98 22-169. Malteser International is the worldwide relief agency of the Sovereign Order of Malta for humanitarian aid. The organisation provides aid in about 100 projects in more than 20 countries without distinction of religion, race or political persuasion. Christian values and the humanitarian principles of impartiality and independence are the foundation of its work. For further information: www.malteser-international.org and www.orderofmalta.int

03 November, 2011

Inspectors from BW Countries Attending Academy

By Sophal
November 2011

Turin, Italy: Eight Labour Inspectors from Better Work Country Programmes attended a two-week Academy on Labour Administration and Labour Inspection in Turin International Training Centre.  The inspectors are from Cambodia, Indonesia, Jordan, Lesotho, and Vietnam.  There are around 132 Labour Inspectors in Jordan while there are approximately 200 in Cambodia.

The first-week academy focused on system, approaches and functions of Labour Inspection with the link to the ILO Convention 81.  It also reflected the system of labour administration, the employment relationship to the Labour Administration and Inspection as well as public/private partnership.  Speakers from both Turin Training Centre and the Social Dialogue -- Labour Administration and Labour Inspection Programme.  The roles of Labour Ministries in coping with crises and the roles of social partners are also discussed.

The second-week combined the study visit and lectures on National OSH, How to Conduct a Labour Inspection Visit, OSH Visit, Labour Inspection and Gender Equality, and Labour Inspection--Child Labour.

                    Labour Inspectors from Cambodia, Indonesia, Jordan, Lesotho, and Vietnam


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