Gestión de interesados según el PMI (2013)

garments and textiles from Cambodia, but they are also where major international apparel brands are headquartered. The 2011 Maastricht Principles on Extraterritorial Obligations of States in the Area of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, while non-binding, provide some guidance on state responsibility to regulate the global operations of home companies within their jurisdictions.

Extraterritorial obligations are defined as “acts or omissions” by states “within or beyond its territory,” that impact the enjoyment of human rights outside the state’s territory.462

States should regulate those “transnational corporations or other business enterprises” that they “are in a position to regulate” in accordance with principle 25 of the Maastricht Principles in order to ensure that they do not nullify or impair the enjoyment of economic, social, and cultural rights. A state is said to be in a position to regulate a transnational corporation “where the corporation or its parent or controlling company, has its centre of activity, is registered or domiciled, or has its place of business or substantial business activities, in the State concerned.”463 _{Regulation can take different forms including}

administrative, legislative, investigative, and judicial.

The US, EU, Canada, and Japan have not introduced regulations to provide incentives or require international apparel brands domiciled in their territories to make non-financial, human-rights related disclosures that would facilitate labor rights compliance throughout the supply chain. Such measures should include requiring international apparel brands to disclose the names of their suppliers and subcontractors.

In 2014, the EU revised its rules on financial statements by adopting a directive on “disclosure of non-financial and diversity information by certain large undertakings and groups” requiring some big EU companies to annually report on their respect for human

462 _{Maastricht Principles on Extraterritorial Obligations of States in the area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 2011,}

http://www.globalhealthrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Maastricht-Principles-on-Extraterritorial-Obligations-of- States-in-the-area-of-Economic-Social-and-Cultural-Rights.pdf (accessed August 29, 2014), para. 8(a).

rights, social and employee-related matters, anticorruption efforts, and environmental concerns.464 _{The directive should be adopted by EU-member states within two years.}

464 _{Council of the European Union, “New transparency rules on social responsibility for big companies,” September 29, 2014,}

Acknowledgments

This report was researched and written by Aruna Kashyap, senior researcher for the

Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. Storm Tiv, associate in the Asia Division, provided research support.

The report was edited by Nisha Varia, advocacy director of the Women’s Rights Division. James Ross, legal and policy director, and Joseph Saunders, deputy program director, provided legal and program review respectively. Chris Albin-Lackey, senior researcher for the Business and Human Rights Division; Phil Robertson, deputy director for the Asia Division; Richard Pearshouse, senior researcher for the Health and Human Rights Division; and Margaret Wurth, researcher for the Children’s Rights Division, provided specialist review.

We are particularly indebted to the external reviewers who commented on sections of an early version of the report.

Bisma Mufti, Adelaida Tamayo, and Tahira Ebaady, interns, and Matthew Rullo, former coordinator of the Women’s Rights Division, provided important secondary research support. Alexandra Kotowski, senior associate in the Women’s Rights Division provided editing and production assistance. Fitzroy Hepkins, administrative manager, provided production assistance.

We are very grateful to the many labor law experts, local and international NGOs, independent unions, lawyers, academics and others who assisted our research, in particular, the Community Legal Education Center, the Workers’ Information Center,

LICADHO, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, the Solidarity Center, the Worker Rights Consortium, and independent union federations— Coalition of Cambodian Apparel

Workers Democratic Union, National Independent Federation of Textile Unions in Cambodia, Collective Union of Movement of Workers, and Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions.

We are particularly grateful to Bunn Rachana, Sophary, and Sann Kalyan, who provided coordination and translation support during the field research.

Above all, we thank all the workers who recounted their experiences of working in factories. We also acknowledge the government officials, factory, and brand representatives who agreed to be interviewed at length for this report.

The views expressed in this report are those of Human Rights Watch and Human Rights Watch takes full responsibility for any errors or omissions.

We acknowledge with gratitude the financial support from the Ford Foundation, Gary and Donna Slaight, and the other generous donors who support the work of the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch.

“Work Faster or Get Out”

Labor Rights Abuses in Cambodia’s Garment Industry

(above) Workers traveling home from a garment factory in Phnom Penh. (front cover) Women in the sewing division of a factory in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Women constitute about 90 percent of the workforce in Cambodia’s garment industry. © 2014 Samer Muscati/ Human Rights Watch

The garment industry in Cambodia is central to the country’s economy, producing name-brand clothing sold mainly in the United States, the European Union, and Canada. The workers in Cambodia’s garment factories, about 90 percent of whom are women, often experience discriminatory and exploitative labor conditions.

“Work Faster or Get Out” describes common labor rights abuses in Cambodia’s garment factories and the failure of government labor inspectors to protect workers’ rights. Problems documented in the report include discrimination against pregnant workers, forced overtime and retaliation for refusing overtime, and unfair treatment of union members. The worst conditions are often in small factories that produce on a subcontract basis for larger factories with export licenses. In the past two years, there have been repeated protests for increased wages—often violently repressed—and episodes of workers fainting on the job in many factories.

This report is based on interviews with more than 340 people, including 270 garment workers from 73 factories in the capital, Phnom Penh, and nearby provinces, as well as union leaders, government officials, labor rights advocates, the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia (GMAC), and international apparel brand representatives. Cambodia’s labor law is strong in many respects. But the combination of short-term contracts that make it easier to fire and control workers, poor government labor inspection and enforcement, and aggressive tactics against independent unions make it difficult for workers to assert their rights.

The report calls on the Cambodian government to revamp its labor inspectorate to make it more transparent and accountable and remove burdensome union registration procedures. The report also calls on apparel brands to publicly disclose the names and addresses of their suppliers, to contribute toward ending poor working conditions throughout their supply chain, and adequately reflect the cost to suppliers of labor, health, and safety compliance in their contracts.