YANGON: Advocates urge brands to honour their agreements with cash-strapped factories as hundreds of thousands in Asia, especially in South-East Asia, face job losses.
Big brands are heaping extra hardship upon the low-paid workers who make their garments in Asia as they look to stem their losses from the Covid-19 pandemic, advocates say. And it has been real bad in Myanmar and Cambodia, two countries relying much on their garment industries.
Firms have taken advantage of long-standing unfair buying practices to protect themselves at the expense of workers, she added:"Most brands and retailers wield a lot of power over their suppliers." "Force majeure cannot be used when contract performance is merely impractical or economically difficult rather than truly impossible," she told dpa.
More than 110 factories employing about 96,000 workers have applied to the Cambodian government to suspend production because of the pandemic, Labour Ministry spokesman Heng Sour said.Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen announced this week that the state would offer suspended workers US$40 per month while factories will provide 30 dollars, a smaller sum than he had promised earlier this year.
And 684 workers who made products for H&M, Next and others were fired last week after bosses at the Yongan garment factory in Yangon said buyers had cancelled orders.
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Garment workers lose jobs as pandemic-hit brands break contractsSINGAPORE/HONG KONG: Advocates urge brands to honour their agreements with cash-strapped factories as hundreds of thousands in Asia face job losses. Big brands are heaping extra hardship upon the low-paid workers who make their garments in Asia as they look to stem their losses from the Covid-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, advocates say.
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