By Lauren Crothers
PHNOM PENH
The Cambodian government has increased the minimum wage for garment workers by $28, a figure unions and labor groups said fell far too short of the $140 they had recommended.
With unions calling for $140 as industry officials proposed $110 per month, the tripartite Labor Advisory Committee - made up of 14 government, seven union and seven factory representatives - held a ballot Wednesday on what wage should be officially proposed to the government.
The government representatives initially put $121 forward — just a dollar more than what the government itself considers to be the country’s “poverty wage”— before upping it to $123 the day of the vote.
According to Ath Thorn, president of the Cambodia Labor Confederation and the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union, the $140 proposal received only two votes, while 16 of the 25 members present voted in favor of $123 and seven for $110.
The $123 proposal was then put to the government, which holds the power to set the sector’s minimum wage.
Thorn told the Anadolu Agency Wednesday that Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng tacked another $5 on to the proposed wage.
“Right now we are angry, because it is only $128,” he said by telephone when asked if the new wage would be the catalyst for fresh strikes and demonstrations.
“I don’t know what our the workers or our members will decide. Our statement says we need to negotiate more and consider to add some more.”
When the wage was set at $100 late last year, workers revolted en masse, saying the figure was insufficient and failed to cover rent, food and additional expenses. Many of the country’s approximately 500,000 workers work overtime in order to make ends meet.
Demonstrations for higher wages, however, were violently shut down in January by government forces, which shot five people dead.
Dave Welsh, country director of U.S.-based labor advocacy organization Solidarity Center, told AA the $128 minimum wage was a “missed opportunity,” particularly because “it’s also only a few dollars above the official poverty line.”
“It makes a mockery of the commitments made earlier this year to the international community and brands that the government would work closely with the [International Labor Organization] to have a wage mechanism and a transparent process,” he said.
“But to believe that, you’d have to believe that the majority of the members from the government, unions and factories came to the same agreement on their own. I think it’s very shortsighted.”
He said workers would still have to work “egregious overtime” to make anything close to $140 per month, despite the likelihood of big brands balking at the new wage.
Cambodia’s garment sector was responsible for $5.5 billion of the country’s exports in 2013 and supplies brands such as H&M, Zara, Adidas and Gap with clothes and shoes.
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