US Government Clothes Producer Denies Abuses
A representative of the Zongtex Garment Manufacturing company in Phnom Penh on Tuesday denied employing workers as young as 15 to make U.S. government clothing, following an exposé by The New York Times on poor standards in factories producing U.S. government attire. On Sunday, The Times reported that despite a “zero tolerance” policy for using factories that break local laws, the U.S. government sourced some of its clothes from such factories. The newspaper reported that an audit conducted this year found that Zongtex, which makes clothes sold by the U.S. Army and Air Force, employed underage workers as young as 15 and that bathroom breaks were so limited that workers were forced to soil themselves at their work stations. … In interviews with The Times, several workers who said they were underage said they were also told to hide from factory inspectors. “Sometimes people soil themselves at their sewing machines,” one worker claimed in The Times story. … Ken Loo, secretary-general of the Garment Manufacturer’s Association in Cambodia (GMAC), said GMAC would look into the allegations, but was skeptical about their findings. “To the underage workers, I will have to check up on this. Zongtex is monitored by the International Labor Organization [ILO]. Surely, something like this would have been found by the ILO…. I’m sure The New York Times did not audit the factory,” he said.
Khy Sovuthy and Joshua Wilwohl
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/us-government-clothes-producer-denies-abuses-49654/
