A Fair Model of Globalisation? Labour and Global Production in Cambodia

The expansion of the global economy and the governance deficit it has generated raise questions about the possibilities for regulating the practices of participants in global production networks. This paper focuses on the regulation of industrial relations in Cambodia's textile and garment industry – a unique ensemble of state, trade union, private sector and international institutions that is promoted as a "fair model of globalisation." We track the trajectory of Cambodia's industrialisation and insertion into the global economy over three interrelated phases: first, the beginnings of export-orientated garment production in the mid- to late 1990s; secondly, the promotion of Cambodia as an "ethical producer" from 1999; and, thirdly, privileging "competitiveness" in global production networks over labour compliance for its advantage. In doing so we centre our analysis on the complex intertwining of global production, the genesis of the unique ensemble of actors in Cambodia and the anomaly of Cambodia's labour movement. Key Words: Better Factories Cambodiainformal labourglobal production networksindustrialisationgovernancetextile and garment industry Acknowledgement Fieldwork for this article was conducted between 2004 and 2009. The authors thank Julie de los Reyes, Annelies Goger, Kevin Hewison, Kong Athit, John Pickles and two anonymous reviewers for comments on the paper at different stages. Toh Han Shih acknowledges the assistance and facilities of the Southeast Asia Research Centre of the City University of Hong Kong. Dennis Arnold's research was supported by the Geography Department Travel Fund of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2007), the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Program and the Center for Khmer Studies PhD Fellowship (2008-09). Initial trade data were collected when Arnold was Graduate Research Assistant working on the National Science Foundation-supported project, "The Geographical Consequences of the End of Quota Constrained Trade in the Global Apparel Industry." Notes 1 Total exports increased from US$1.5 billion in 2001 to US$4.1 billion in 2007, including garments, shoes, cigarettes, natural rubber, rice, pepper, wood and fish. 2 Food sellers represent almost 40% of indirect jobs, housing 25% and transportation 5%. Another 30% include small traders, clothing shops and other supporting businesses (Economic Institute of Cambodia, Citation2007: 16). 3 On 3 January 1992, the USA lifted its embargo against Cambodia, thus normalising economic relations. The USA also ended blanket opposition to lending to Cambodia by international financial institutions (US Department of State, Citation2009). 4 The focus of these international interventions derives primarily from neo-liberal approaches favoured by dominant actors in the international system, such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, as well as Western donor nations. Hughes (Citation2007: 836) contends that these actors espouse an agenda of poverty reduction and economic progress, tied a priori to a model that regards economic growth as the key to development, and privatisation and liberalisation as the sine qua non of economic growth. This "opening" fostered the introduction of export-oriented garment production. 5 Chea Vichea was the union's president. He was murdered in 2004, and the FTU continues to call for a thorough investigation of the case (see the FTU's website, http://www.ftuwkc.org/). 6 For a more thorough analysis of the Better Factories Program, see Polaski (Citation2004; Citation2009), Miller et al. (Citation2007) and Wells (Citation2007). However, the analysis cited does not consider Cambodia's labour standards and implementation from a comparative perspective, which is a potentially insightful means to analyse the difference it has made. 7 See the Better Factories Cambodia website at http://www.betterfactories.org/ilo for details. 8 Conor Boyle from the ILO points out that this discrepancy results from GMAC statistics that tally every union, active or inactive, from the date factories open operations, while the ILO counts active unions (interview, 24 February 2009). 9 The ILO has categorised unions as "A" and "B." A unions are pro-CPP while the B category are considered opposition unions, even though most of the B unions are not active supporters of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party. In reality, however, there is another two categories of unions: the truly independent unions and unions that are mafia or mafia-like organisations. In 2006 the ILO recognised four federations as B group, while a majority are considered "A-oriented." In other words, despite large numbers of unions and federations, few are independent, even by the ILO's rather loose standards. 10 Portions of this section draw on Arnold (Citation2008). 11 It is worth noting that "cultural issues" or racist slurs uttered by foreign managers, identified as a common reason for strikes in the late 1990s and early 2000s, have become less pronounced.