Not just Bangladesh, garment makers pressured in Cambodia as well

Hundreds of angry workers rampaged through textile plant in Cambodia, clashing with police over demands for pay hike.

PHNOM PENH: As investment in Cambodia's textile industry surges, so is labour unrest, putting pressure on suppliers to the world's big garment brands to raise wages and improve sometimes grim conditions in one of the last bastions of low-cost factories.

Hundreds of angry workers rampaged this week through a textile plant in Cambodia that supplies US sportswear company Nike Inc, clashing with police over their demands for a pay hike.

The violence came just weeks after over 1,100 workers were killed in the collapse of a building housing garment factories in Bangladesh, another impoverished Asian nation where mass-produced textiles are the biggest export earner.

Cambodia is considered one of the better locations in the world for low-cost garment manufacturing with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) monitoring pay and working conditions at many factories.

But strikes and sometimes violent protests have been on the rise as unions emboldened by a shortage of skilled workers press complaints that companies have failed to raise wages enough or improve safety.

Strikes by the country's more than 300,000 garment workers nearly quadrupled last year to 134, according to the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia, the main industry body. The 48 strikes so far this year are already more than in the whole of 2010 or 2011.

"Supply of skilled workers is a problem," said Kaing Monika, a business development manager at the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia (GMAC), the main industry body.

"Most existing factories are running at full capacity."

Nike was the latest big brand to face protest action at its Cambodia-based suppliers in recent months, joining H&M Hennes and Mauritz AB, Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Gap Inc , and Puma SE among others.

The international brands buy garments from local manufacturers and do not have direct control over pay or working conditions. But the major companies have signed to the ILO scheme aimed at ensuring suppliers meet legal requirements on wages and work conditions.

The garments industry has become by far the country's biggest export earner, with shipments up 10 percent in 2012 to $4.44 billion.