Tuesday, Jul 21, 2015, 4:12 pm
Thousands of Garment Factory Workers Across Cambodia Are Fainting on the Job
BY Michael Arria
URL: http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18222/garment_factory_workers_across_cambodia_are_fainting_by_the_hundreds
At the end of June,
nearly 350 workers fainted
in garment factories across Cambodia, with more than 100 collapsing on
one day alone. These developments are part of a much wider pattern in
the country: In 2011, there were 2,071 incidents of workers fainting, in
2012 there were 2,100. Last spring, nearly 120 workers fainted at two
textile factories that make products for Puma and Adidas. From July of
last year on, there were 733 fainting incidents across 14 different
factories, almost all by women, who make up the vast majority of
Cambodia’s garment workforce.
These recent events have naturally led to concerns about the
health of workers in Cambodia’s textile industry, a sector that has
received increased criticism in recent years as a result of what some
say are abusive labor conditions. The faintings demonstrate that a wider
discussion of the conditions these workers work under is needed—not
just within Cambodia, but among the global brands who rely upon their
labor.
Cheav Bunrith, spokesman for Cambodia’s National Social Security Fund
(NSSF) declared that the fainting was connected to tainted food. “It’s
normal,” he
told The Cambodia Daily.
“Technically, if a factory has an incident of fainting, more will occur
during the following days in smaller numbers.” The NSSF released a
report dismissing the suggestion that the incidents were somehow
connected to workplace conditions.
But Bunrith’s declaration, and the aforementioned report, conflict
with other reports from workers. Seang Sokun, a representative from
Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union, said he had
been informed that the fumes at one factory had caused the fainting.
“The investigating team didn’t use the right equipment,” Sokun
said, “They used their noses … and found nothing.”
A recent comprehensive investigation also suggests an operative link
between health and work environment. At the end of 2014, a study
conducted by the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Better
Factories Cambodia project, together with the Agence Française de
Développement (AFD) and Angkor Research and Consulting Ltd., found high
levels of food insecurity and anemia among Cambodian garment workers.
According to that study, 43.2% of the workers surveyed suffer from
anemia and 15.7% of the workers are underweight. The study also found
that garment workers spend around $9 per week on food, or $1.30 every
day.
“Anemia and food insecurity can contribute to wide-ranging health
problems for workers,” said Better Factories Cambodia Program Manager
Jill Tucker in a statement. “Anemia often leads to chronic fatigue,
difficulty concentrating and low productivity. Addressing these anemia
levels will be complex, but is key to improving productivity and
business outcomes in the garment sector.”
Enforcing regulations that improve the health of workers has been a
challenge for a number of reasons, but one of the major ones is the lack
of sick time. Cambodian Labor Law entitles workers to sick leave for a
maximum of six months and requires. However, according to a 140-page
report that
Human Rights Watch released in March, managers frequently deducted a
disproportionate amount of money from their pay if they used their sick
time. Additionally, many workers said they didn’t take time off, even if
sick, for fear of facing punishment or termination. This is obviously a
problem as workers frequently attend their jobs while suffering from
various illnesses.
The report quotes a factory worker named Chhau San. “If we have taken
three days [sick] leave, then they deduct $20 from what we have
earned,” said San, “They say to us: ‘If you want to earn that money
back, work more.’ We only bring medical certificates because we feel
they will scream at us less.”
The HRW report also found that workers were forced to work overtime
and government oversight was infrequently applied. Thousands of
inspections have been carried out, but the report was only able to
identify 10 instances when fines were actually imposed on factories.
Cambodia’s garment industry employs an estimated 700,000 people, and
last year garment exports reportedly totaled $5.7 billion. It has
received international attention in recent years as a result of tragedy
and turmoil: In 2013, a shoe factory
collapsed, killing two workers. Last year a strike for higher wages turned deadly when police fired into a group of protesters,
killing at least four people.
The country has also gained attention because many popular western
brands source from factories in Cambodia. The HRW report gleaned
information via contacts from Adidas, Armani, Gap, H&M, Joe Fresh
and Marks and Spencer.
William Conkin, Country Program Director at the AFL-CIO’s Solidarity
Center for Cambodia, stresses the need for food nutrition programs, food
allowances and regular labor inspections. He also mentioned the need
for the brands involved to take responsibility for the workers who
create their products.
“The international brands must be committed to this in practice,”
said Conkin, “as their various codes and standards state that wages are
essential to meeting the basic needs of workers. Wages increases, with
sufficient funding for meals during work time, are critically linked to
how well workers can look after themselves.”
While a
new minimum wage campaign is currently gaining ground in the country, a repressive
new labor law,
which would restrict unionization and further erode human rights, has
also been recently proposed. The fainting spells are part of a much
broader struggle in Cambodia over what the future of labor in the
country will look like.
“The mass faintings should be regarded as work related accidents,”
Conkin told me. It’s a necessary step in a longstanding struggle for
these workers to establish their basic rights on the job.
