Labor Lowdown: This week in workers’ rights

A number of recent protests, boycotts and civil actions have grown from a shared root: workers' rights and labor abuses. And citizens and activists are demanding better working conditions, pay and legal protections.

In Cambodia, factory workers have taken to the streets after employees fired their colleagues “unfairly,” Switzerland opened its first drive-thru “sex boxes,” South Africa’s strike wave is moving into negotiations and some of the world’s domestic workers may be looking at better conditions.

Here are some continuing issues to keep in mind:

CAMBODIA

Protests have erupted in Cambodia’s capital city of Phnom Penh this week, Al Jazeera reported, after a factory that supplies global brands including GAP and H&M fired hundreds of employees for a two-week strike over insufficient wages.

Approximately 4,000 workers took to the streets yesterday, accusing the Singapore-owned SL Garment Processing factory of firing 720 workers on Wednesday and suspending more that 5,000 others.

Demonstrators marched from the factory to city hall where they pressed the government to intervene.

“We want the factory to allow the workers to go back to work,” Al Jazeera quoted Ath Thorn, union leader and president of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union, as saying. “But if they want to close they factory they must pay compensation to workers according to the law.”

The initial walkout occurred after “an official flanked by military police” carried out a factory inspection, in a move that workers felt was intended to intimidate them.

Meas Sotha, a Cambodian investor in the factory, confirmed to the AFP news agency that some staff members had been dismissed, but said that there was no intent to intimidate workers with the presence of armed police.

“Their strike was illegal,” he added, going on to explain that the company will compensated the staffers it terminated, and allow those it suspended to return to work on Monday.

SWITZERLAND

Zurich opened its first “red-light drive-ins”—called “sex boxes” last week, GlobalPost reported, in an effort to take prostitution off of the city’s streets and better monitor the industry.

Using the drive-up service, customers can place orders for “one of 40 and then proceed to one of nine wooden booths.”

The actual drive thru service came one year after voters passed the initiative.

"Safety for the prostitutes. At least it's a certain kind of a shelter for them. They can do their business, and I respect them," GP quoted Zurich lawyer Daniel Hartmann as saying.

The service will be available to customers with vehicles from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m., and each box provides prostitutes with an alarm that is connected directly to the police.

"Prostitution is a business basically. We cannot prohibit it, so we want to control it in favor of the sex workers and the population," Michael Herzig, director of social services for sex workers in Zurich, told Agence France-Presse.

SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa’s Chamber of Mines presented a revised wage offer to the National Union of Mineworkers yesterday, according to AllAfrica.

"The chamber presented us with a revised offer [on Wednesday] which will be the subject of discussion at today's [Thursday] strike committee meeting that is currently sitting," NUM spokesman Lesiba Seshoka told AllAfrica.

All though gold producers' spokeswoman Charmane Russell did not reveal any details regarding what the revision included, she did confirm that such on offer was in fact presented. “At this stage I cannot say which aspects of the offer were revised… but discussions are at a delicate stage," Russell said.

While the Union has not revealed whether or not the revised figures came nearer to its demands, they did say that the strike committee is in the process of evaluating it and determining whether to take it or reject it.

The revision and its consideration, however, may be a sign that talks between the union and employers are finally taking place in good faith.

This follows a Wednesday agreement between gold producers, the union and the United Association of South Africa.

"The settlements reached by these companies are [an] eight percent increase in basic wages for category four and five employees, including rock drill operators. A 7.5 percent increase in basic wages for category six to eight employees, [including] miners, artisans, and officials," the chamber's chief negotiator Elize Strydom said.

AllAfrica has reported that the settlements “were mine-specific and did not change the dynamics of the strike in other mines,” and that “union members at those mines agreed to the terms and understood what it meant for them.”

WORLD

A global treaty that giving domestic workers—who care for children and the elderly, cook and clean—around the world the same rights as other workers in their home countries was signed into effect this week.

The Domestic Workers Convention was adopted by International Labor Organization members to giving an estimated 50 to 100 million domestic workers labor protections including days off, minimum wage coverage, limits to the number of hours an employee can be required to work, overtime pay, Social Security benefits, and well-defined information surrounding the terms and conditions of their employment. Workers will now also be protected “from violence and abuse” and children not be allowed to work in this capacity.

Only nine countries, however, have approved the treaty. Those countries are Bolivia, Germany, Italy, Mauritius, Nicaragua, Paraguay, the Philippines, South Africa and Uruguay.

In the US, where the treaty has not yet been approved, 20 percent of housekeepers and about a third of nannies and caregivers earn less than minimum wage, while home health aides for the elderly and disabled “earn so little that nearly 40 percent rely on public benefits to get by,” according to Think Progress.