Figure 1 - uploaded by Melisa Serrano
Content may be subject to copyright.
Source publication
The young trade union movement in Cambodia has gone through difficult challenges, including a tough political environment and a conflict-ridden industrial relations system, as it struggles towards transforming itself into a legitimate movement that genuinely represents workers' interests. Nonetheless, since 2010, posiitve developments have had take...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... when analysed over a longer period-2001 to 2017-there was a general decline in GDP growth rates, peaking at 13.3 per cent in 2005 (Figure 1), the year when the Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA) 1 , which assured Cambodia of a quota on garment exports to the EU and the US, ended. From 2006 until 2009, the general downward trend became steeper. ...
Context 2
... 2010 and, the growth in GDP per capita averaged a lower rate of 5.3 per cent. Nonetheless, Cambodia experienced a steady increase in GDP per capita (at constant 2010 US dollars) between 2001 and 2015 ( Figure 1). From about 452 US dollars in 2001, GDP per capita (at constant 2010 US dollars) more than doubled to 1,021 US dollars in 2015. ...
Context 3
... from international tourism have increased at a tremendous pace since 2000, according to the ADB (2015). In recent years, receipts from international tourism totalled between 15 per cent and 17 per cent of GDP ( Figure 10). ...
Context 4
... has had a significant positive impact on poverty reduction. As shown in Figure 11, 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 GDP=gross domestic product. between 2004 and 2012, there was a general downward trend in poverty levels using different indicators. ...
Context 5
... income inequality remains high. In 2012, the income share held by the highest 20 per cent income group was 40.2 per cent while the income share of the lowest 20 per cent was a paltry 9.1 per cent ( Figure 12). Nevertheless, between 2004 and 2012, there was a general downtrend in the income share of the highest 20 per cent, from 44.4 per cent in 2004 to 40.2 per cent in 2012, while a general uptrend, albeit slower, in the income share of the lowest 20 per cent occurred during the same period-from 7.9 per cent to 9.1 per cent. ...
Context 6
... to the ADB and the ILO (2015), Cambodia's participation rate is high relative to other ASEAN economies with higher output per capita which typically have lower participation rates. Between 2001 and 2013, there was an upward trend in participation rates, which averaged 83.4 per cent ( Figure 13). Male participation rates, which registered an average rate of 87.3 per cent in the same period, tend to be consistently higher than the average total labour force participation rate and the average for women. ...
Context 7
... increasing employment-to-population ratios in the 2000s, unemployment rates decelerated as well. Between 2004 and 2013, unemployment rates averaged a negligible 0.4 per cent ( Figure 14). The average rates for men and women were the same at 0.4 per cent. ...
Context 8
... transformation has been fueled by the expansion of garment manufacturing and tourism services. Between 2007 and 2015, employment in agriculture was generally shrinking so that by 2015, the share of employment of agriculture went down from 57.7 per cent in 2007 to 42 per cent in 2015 ( Figure 15). Meanwhile, employment in industry and services was expanding. ...
Context 9
... employment accounted a majority of employment in 2014. However, it has been declining since 2004 ( Figure 16). Much of the decline in vulnerable employment was driven by the dramatic decline in the incidence of unpaid family work. ...
Context 10
... contribution of labour, defined as the sum of the economy-wide hours worked (the number of workers multiplied by the average hours worked per worker), in the average output growth was 2.4 percentage points, or 32 per cent of the output growth. The contribution of capital (non-information technology) was higher at 2.9 percentage points or 39 per cent of total output ( Figure 17). This suggests that, overall, capital contributed more to growth than labour input during the period examined. ...
Context 11
... contributed 27 per cent of total output, in the period 1970-2015. Figure 17 shows the changes over time in the relative importance of drivers behind economic growth. While TFP made a steadily increasing contribution over the period, labour's share generally declined and capital's share remained unchanged. ...
Context 12
... nine occasions, with the highest increases made between 2010 and 2016 ( Figure 19). Between 2013 and 2018, the wage adjustments occurred yearly, with the highest increase of 28 per cent made in 2015, following the outbreak of large-scale strikes in the previous years. ...
Context 13
... large swings in the frequency of industrial actions in the garment sector indicate the instability of industrial relations in Cambodia and the general failure of the country's labour dispute resolution system. Although on paper Cambodia has a comprehensive formal labour dispute resolution system (see Figure 21) that includes the Arbitration Council, courts, and numerous other entities involved in labour dispute resolution, in practice, employers and workers primarily rely on the Arbitration Council for the effective resolution of labour disputes (ADB and ILO, 2015). ...
Context 14
... add five key variables that influence union capacity: (1) institutions of industrial relations, (2) state policy towards unions, (3) employer strategies or attitude toward unions, (4) union identity, and (5) network resources/availability of union partners or support organizations. Figure 31 illustrates the authors' concept of trade union capacity. ...
Citations
... In the 1870s, for example, the textile industry was hit with a large wave of labour unrest first in the UK and later, in continental Europe, the US and Japan. Today, important textiles and garment production sites have been relocated to countries such as Pakistan, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Myanmar, where new labour movements have developed (Zajak, 2017;Serrano and Nuon, 2018). There is, consequently, a spatial and technological logic at play: in the Global South, Marx-type offensive struggles and labour movements in lead industries normally emerge later, after the unmaking of labour movements in the core. ...
Nearly three decades ago, Manuel Castells declared the atomising effects of the new technologies of the ‘information age’ to presage the ‘end of labour’. There is little doubt that the labour movement worldwide is no longer the social force it was in the twentieth century. Much of the debate on the future of work and consequences for worker organisation, moreover, has focused on defensive struggles against the introduction of new technologies in the Global North. Technological change has also led, however, to struggles in the Global South. These ‘technological fixes’ have historically contributed to the ‘remaking’ of new working classes and related ‘offensive’ struggles, the latest of which is digitalisation and algorithmic management. In this primarily conceptual article, we adopt a power resources approach to an analysis of these changes, using as our basis, a project encompassing eight empirical case studies on recent labour organising in on-location platform economies of both the Global North and South. Analysis of food-delivery and private ride-hailing platforms in Argentina and Uganda, respectively, showed different varieties of platform unionism, with forms of worker organisation in the Global South tending to more autonomy and hybridity. In some cases, these self-organised worker collectives go beyond established forms of unionism in attempts to control the platform technologies. We conclude by suggesting that the experiments of platform workers with new forms of power and organisation, particularly in the Global South, are important to follow in the Global North.
... While a 13-month salary payment is a common practice in Cambodia, it is not mandated by law. It is important to note that the government selectively implements labour legislation (Ford et al., 2021;Serrano and Nuon, 2018) and most businessesincluding foreign-owned onesfail to fully meet their legal obligations. This widely known fact was confirmed by the Head of Siem Reap's Provincial Labour Inspectorate, who told us that 'no enterprise complies 100 percent with the labour and employment law' (Interview, July 2022). ...
... Despite the fact that Cambodia has several thousand registered unions, there were only 478 registered CBAs as of 2014. Of these, only 18 had been negotiated by hotel unions (Serrano and Nuon, 2018). Where they do exist, most CBAs are very limited in coverage, at best reiterating employers' obligations under the labour law. ...
This article examines unions’ role in mitigating the impact of COVID-19 on hotel workers in Siem Reap, Cambodia's most popular tourist destination. The article analyses the experiences of unionised and non-unionised hotel workers before and during the pandemic, drawing on data collected from one non-unionised and three unionised hotels. Data was collected through in-depth qualitative interviews with management, workers, workplace union officials, as well as with national federation leaders and government officials. Our analysis of that data revealed that unionised hotel workers received far better support from their employers and the government than non-unionised hotel workers, and that their unions played an important role in securing these benefits. This suggests that, in the absence of union power, international reputation was not enough to protect workers during COVID-19.
... The ILO's deep involvement created an enabling environment that allowed unions to represent workers' interests. This was achieved by embedding freedom of association in labor legislation and providing much of the initial funding for union development through its Workers' Education Program (Serrano & Nuon, 2018). The international labor movement also supported Cambodia's nascent labor unions, providing substantial financial backing for a variety of training and capacity building initiatives aimed at enhancing union operations, knowledge and skills. ...
Authoritarian states face a fundamental tension in managing labor conflict. Too much repression can be read as a violation of workers' human rights, but too little undermines their structures of control. In this article, we shift focus from the overt repression of workers and unions to consider how states manage labor dissent through governance reform. Using Cambodia as our case, we examine the government's use of a series of “authoritarian innovations” to reassert control over labor governance mechanisms once dominated by international actors. Through an analysis of the shifting terrain of reform in the areas of labor legislation, minimum wage‐setting, and disputes resolution, we show how institutional pacification has contained labor in ways that have served to defend state legitimacy and protect accumulation. We conclude by discussing the implications of these novel tactics—which signal the state is neither static nor predictable—for our understanding of labor governance under authoritarianism.
This article analyses the role played by brands, producer‐country governments, and unions in mitigating the impact of disruptions caused to garment supply chains by COVID‐19 in Cambodia, Indonesia, and Myanmar. Its findings challenge brand‐centric accounts, highlighting the need for more serious consideration of the dynamic, relational nature of labor governance—and, in particular, of the role of the state–labor nexus in determining producer‐country unions' ability to exercise strategic agency within global supply chains.
As part of the Core Labour Standards Plus (CLS+) initiative, this case study analyses the status of compliance with international labour and social standards, implication of non-compliance, and power relationships in global supply chains with a particular focus on the export-oriented industries of Pakistan.
Pakistan textile sector accounts for about 60 per cent of Pakistan's export, provides employment to 40 per cent of the industrial workforce, contributes nearly one-quarter of the total industrial output, and has the logest production chain.
