Lions Share of Stylish High Street Clothes - Essay Example

Nowadays, the lion’s share of stylish high street clothes marked by popular brands like H&M, Zara, Old Navy, and others come to consumers around the world from Asian countries, as these multinational companies prefer placing their capacities there, motivated by benefit and rather high productivity. Cambodia as one of the main production capacities for the garment industry hosts numerous garment factories and employs from 400 to 60o thousand workers. Close connection with American and European companies makes garment production account for 80% of Cambodia's exports (Paul, 2014). As the free trade agreement was signed by the United States and Cambodia within WTO (World Trade Organization), the country became the “favorite” supplier of brand clothes for American shopping malls. However, the situation is rather grave as Cambodian workers (with mainly women from rural areas being among them) face inadequate and extremely poor working conditions as well as low wages. Most workers have to live on only 3 dollars a day, working hard in unfavorable factory conditions (Tolson, 2014). It is also remarkable that almost half of a day wage has to be spent for meal. Thus, seeking to save money, Cambodian workers often share meals, which eventually leads to malnutrition and fainting (Tolson, 2014). Fainting has affected about 4000 factory workers in the recent years, with cases of mass fainting in the workplace. This concerning fact couldn’t go unattended as faintings were caused by hunger, heat, poor ventilation, long working days and inhalation of chemical substances for fabric processing. Considering the abundant evidences, one can easily conclude that labor rights are blatantly violated in Cambodia, violations were so numerous that last months of 2013 and first part of 2014 brought workers’ strikes and protests in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh with demands to increase wage. Garment industry workers are paid beyond the subsistent minimum wage. The situation went far enough for the government to deploy police for suppression of protests leaving several people dead and numerous of them wounded. Moreover, this summer, several lethal cases were reported with women fainting in the workplace and then dying. Labor unions try to promote their demands of minimum wage increase so that workers can afford adequate existence. Community Legal Education Center (CLEC), an organization advocating for human and labor rights, tries to convince main brands having their capacities in Cambodia to implement the program of free meals for workers (Tolson, 2014).

However, there has been rather little progress in this situation, and the low wages in Cambodia are told to be the necessary measure for preserving the country’s competitiveness in front of India, Vietnam and other Asian countries working in collaboration with maim European and American apparel corporations. On the other hand, this issue remains relevant and rather concerning among human right activists and, of course, workers themselves as they continue living in slave-like condition, while the industry they are employed in brings a lot of money. Thus, policy of garment manufacturing companies is unacceptable and needs to be changed as it produces devastating impact on people’s lives. To add more, it is quite possible that improvement of working conditions might increase workers’ productivity and quality of their work, because the conditions created for Cambodians serve as a serious demotivating factor and necessity to take care of labor rights has been emphasized recently in various studies and reports of international labor unions. However, despite programs and monitoring of labor standards in Asian countries and in Cambodia in particular, the situation remains difficult as maintaining god labor standards goes against benefit that employers expect to gain from the industry.

Outline

1. Cambodia as one of the youngest economies.

• Civil strife in 1960’s-1980’s kept the country from joining the world’s economy (Polaski, 2006). The foundations were laid in 1990’s with turning state-owned garment factories into export capacities. The dominating industry is apparel production.
• Role of quotas in the industries development. At first, Cambodia could export products without quotas as it was a latecomer to the industry (Polaski, 2006).
• Combination of foreign investors, international garment brands, trade unions and local labor force.

1. Garment industry as an example of globalization.

• Multi-Fibre Agreement. High quotas for Cambodia “to be easily inserted into the global economy” (Arnold & Han Shih, 2010). Trade agreement between the U.S. and Cambodia: wide access to the market for improved labor standards.
• Better Factories program for labor conditions and rights improvement.

1. Labor standards and working conditions in Cambodia

• Formal legislation and actual picture. Due to statistical analysis, these two differ considerably (Brown et al., 2013). Non-compliance with legal standards tends to save money for employers.
• Compliance with standards and its effects, laid forth in studies of Brown et al.
• “Low wages in apparel reflect low wages in Cambodia generally” (Brown et al., 2013). Wages and standards of labor in Cambodian textile industry: low even due to local standards.