Garment factory workers in Cambodia have called on some of the world's biggest clothing companies to help recover themillions of dollars worth of wages and benefits lost by the COVID-19 pandemic.
About 33 trade unions and labor groups from Cambodia have written to major brands including Adidas, H&M, Levi's, Nike, Puma, Target, GAP, C&A and VF Corp regarding their requests.
They say a total of $117 million in wages was lost during Cambodia's strict restrictions in April and May. The figure is based on a study of 114 factories conducted by local unions.
The group counts there are more than 700,000 Cambodian garment workers with a total of $393 million in wages and severance pay that have not been paid since the start of the pandemic. Factories there fail to pay severance pay as stipulated in the country's labor laws.
Moreover, the Cambodian Ministry of Manpower has advised factories that are experiencing economic difficulties to close.
"While workers are not getting a decent living wage, brands must take responsibility and take concrete action," said Tharo, of the Alliance Center for Labor and Human Rights.
Meanwhile, global brands have slowly recovered and earned quite a high revenue this year. The German company is committed to fair wages and has helped major suppliers secure bank finances to tackle the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Puma company said the Cambodian union's letter did not mention the factory that supplied Puma. The company has been trying to avoid order cancellations as much as possible.
"In Cambodia, we only canceled 0.2% of our clothing orders. The number of factories we work in has not decreased during the pandemic," a spokesman said.
Industry analyst Sheng Lu said global brands were becoming more confident as the economy recovered and vaccination programs in the US and Europe expanded. However, he said, the main challenges, including uncertainty and rising costs, remained.
"Everything has become more expensive this year, from shipping and logistics costs, textile raw materials to labor. The unexpected rise of COVID cases in the summer of 2021, especially the delta variant, has caused new market uncertainty," said Sheng.
