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On September 18, 2010 over 300 Cambodian garment workers, many of them trade-union leaders, were unjustly suspended or fired from their jobs for participating in a nation-wide strike for an increase in the minimum wage. Since then, efforts to get them reinstated have failed, despite a court order and the government calling on employers to allow the workers to return to work. Please take action and demand that these workers are allowed to return to work immediately.
Coming ten months after the demise of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA), the Asia-Latina Women's Exchange was designed to give participants an opportunity to share what the end of the import quota system has meant for workers and communities in Thailand, China/Hong Kong, Cambodia, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and the Dominican Republic and to discuss strategies for better defending workers' rights in a post-quota industry.
This series of five fact sheets explains the MFA phase-out, defines terms related to the MFA and trade, outlines a proposed action program, looks to Cambodia as a case study, and asks what CAFTA means for the Central American garment industry.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) Garment Sector Working Conditions Improvement Project came into being in May 4, 2000 as a result of the US-Cambodia Textile Agreement. That agreement provided increased access to the US market in the form of a quota bonus for textile and apparel products made in Cambodia in exchange for industry and government efforts to improve compliance with ILO Core Conventions and national labour law. PDF Format
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