Buyers Laud Renewal of Industrial Relations Agreement
As buyers for international clothing brands yesterday praised the renewal of an agreement aimed at reducing strikes in the garment sector, labor unions and factory owners said that only proper implementation would determine the agreement’s effectiveness. Modeled after an earlier pact from 2010 to prevent work stoppages due to wildcat strikes, the agreement on improving industrial relations in the garment industry was renewed late Wednesday night by the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) and eight union confederations. It will expire in October 2014. The agreement puts safeguards in place to ensure that strikes are only a final resort for unions to settle disputes, and holds that factory owners must adhere to rulings by the Arbitration Council, an institution whose rulings on disputes are not legally binding. …
