In the US, we've lost all sight of Labor Day. It's that three-day weekend in September, the end of summer, the beginning of the academic season, and a nice weekend to travel. Does "labor day" assist us in appreciating how good we have it? Strangely, yet also unsurprisingly, it does not.
Yet for the rest of the world, Labor Day is 1 May and it really is about a celebration of the international labor movement. For Cambodian civil society members, human rights activists, and those employed in sectors most prone to abuses of labor laws, it's a day to restate global commitment to ensure that everyone has the right to a safe and decently compensated place of employment.
For this Labor Day, I joined with some colleagues and several thousand Cambodians (predominately women), in a march along the Phnom Penh riverside. Most of those in the march were young Cambodian women from the garment industry.
Cambodia has been both blessed and challenged in recent years as it's joined the up-and-coming nations involved in textile manufacturing. Nike, Gap, American Eagle, Adidas, Levi, A&F, among many others outsource garment production to Cambodia. The result has been an overwhelming number of young women from rural areas flooding into the Phnom Penh suburbs for employment, a new booming economy. However, these women, poor and uneducated, are often at risk of exploitation. They are paid $61 per month with no overtime and certainly no benefits. Even in Cambodia, $61 is far below a "living wage." For years, human rights activists have been pushing for the minimum wage to be increased and for factories conditions to be improved. Mass faintings are common in factories where there is no airflow and a high concentration of dust and chemicals.
Also represented in this year's Labor Day march were tuk tuk drivers and moto taxis, a sector completely unrepresented and unprotected in the Cambodian labor laws. As far as the government is concerned, these sectors don't exist.
For the march, we walked to the National Assembly and requested for a representative to come and take the petition jointly signed by members of the garment and transport sectors. Not surprisingly, no one came out.
Still, it was a remarkable event, the joining together of several thousand members of unrepresented sectors, surrendering their day off to signal support for justice and a fair wage. Large gatherings are largely discouraged in Cambodia, but on Labor Day, for once, a crowd marched through Phnom Penh. And just for today, remarkably, it was peaceful.
No comments:
Post a Comment