Labour Behind The Label

After months of intense struggle, unions and employers reach an agreement to increase wages in Cambodia. Unions and garment manufacturers in Cambodia have reached an agreement to increase wages significantly. The agreement follows months of unprecedented labour activism in Cambodia, where a rapidly growing garment industry has become the most important industrial sector and income-earner.

All brands except Debenhams have now responded to the shocking findings of the Taking Liberties report, which revealed workers in India are paid less than half the living wage, live in slum conditions, and have their rights systematically exploited.

To learn more about sweatshops in the garment industry, students can stage their own one-day sweatshop for charity, living through the experience of working in an exploitative garment factory in their own school, just for one day.

The students plan and lead their own project, deciding how to stage the one-day event, what product to manufacture, what rules to abide by (for example, 'no talking', 'no toilet breaks', which is common in the sweatshop world), and how to sell the product they have produced afterwards. All profits from this event go to Labour Behind the Label to support garment workers' struggles for better working conditions in the real world.

Take action today to support over 300 Cambodian workers sacked for their participation in strikes for fair wages. The workers downed their tools in September last year to support trade unions in ongoing minimum-wage negotiations. They were dismissed from their factories as a consequence. 

Bulletin 34 Autumn/Winter 2010

Includes: - Massive wage protests sweep Asia, Indian workers speak out about a life locked out from benefits and rights, Union leader kidnapped by M&S supplier, UK sweat shop scandal, Bangladesh: BCWS struggle against repression.