Nike, Cambodia, and Labor Rights: A Troubling Relationship

Nike has actually made a large effort to persuade consumers, investors and others that it is improving the lives of manufacturing facility workers that make its products, not exploiting them. A rare view of incomes at one Cambodian factory examinations this case.

Cambodia’s Labor Rights Challenges

Labor rights are rare in Cambodia. The united state State Department said in a 2023 human rights report that “considerable and organized restrictions on workers’ flexibility of organization” exist in Cambodia which the federal government “stopped working to effectively apply legislations that protected union and labor rights.” Human Rights Watch claimed in a 2022 record that the government’s repression of independent unions had actually only heightened after the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Brands enhancing their orders from Cambodia while raising problems concerning labor legal rights are “undoubtedly combined messages,” Judd said. “And one message, the order, has a great deal more weight than the other. Until those are credibly endangered, the government has no reason to act.”

Workers have actually been passing out for many years in Cambodia’s garment manufacturing facilities, where more than 57,000 individuals now generate Nike goods. A previous clinical employee at one of the business’s distributors blamed overtime hours, to name a few elements.

The curbs on unions and complimentary speech are in tension with Nike’s standard procedure, which identifies workers’ legal rights to sign up with profession unions and participate in union activities without interference. In countries that limit union rights, Nike says manufacturing facilities have to have a reliable grievance procedure that permits employees to voice concerns over working problems without fear of revenge.

Nike’s Stance vs. Reality

An agent for Cambodia’s Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training said the incidents that led foreign brand names to elevate worry about the federal government were “old,” misguiding and had actually been politicized. The agent did not respond to subsequent concerns after a press reporter noted that the most recent case happened within the in 2015.

Khun, the CENTRAL staffer, said he recognized the Nike employee that focused on company social duty in Cambodia, however he claimed she left the firm within the in 2014. Khun stated he didn’t understand whether any individual had actually changed her. (She did not respond to ProPublica, and Nike did not reply to inquiries concerning her departure.).

Bryony Lau, replacement Asia director for Human Rights Watch, stated with the consistent damage in workers’ legal rights in Cambodia and Head of state Donald Trump’s cuts to U.S. international aid, Western garments companies have an imperative to speak out in Cambodia.

Previous Khmer Rouge squadron leader Hun Sen led Cambodia from 1985 till handing control to his boy, Hun Manet, in 2023. Hun Sen was brazen in his public terminations of threats from the West over its attack on labor rights and civil society, said Carlyle Thayer, emeritus teacher of politics at Australia’s College of New South Wales, Canberra. The dangers consisted of cautions from Europe, united state legislators and international clothes brands.

While Nike has been shrinking its impact in China, its presence in Cambodia has actually grown, from about 16,000 factory workers in May 2013, to virtually 35,000 in 2019, to greater than 57,000 since March. Today, Cambodia is the athletic garments titan’s third-largest distributor of garments other than shoes, nearly overtaking its clothing production in China.

Cambodia: Nike’s Growing Footprint

When cops utilized stun batons to strike garment employees seeking a $14 monthly raise from a Nike manufacturing facility in Cambodia in 2013, reportedly leading one expecting female to miscarry, Nike claimed it was “deeply concerned.”

The labor leader had actually already gotten a put on hold criminal sentence. The federal government claimed she instigated objections over salaries, which occurred in 2013 and 2014. That sentence was at some point left in what Civil rights Watch claimed was an initiative to placate European authorities intimidating Cambodia’s trade accessibility.

He pointed to an episode in which the European Compensation endangered to end tariff exemptions for Cambodian exports over worries regarding human rights and labor abuses. Hun Sen guided the country’s courts to rapidly choose situations pending versus union authorities, Thayer stated, leading to put on hold sentences for some and dropped charges for others.Instead of following through on its hazard, the European Payment enforced a scaled-down collection of profession restrictions.

One former elderly Nike exec, that requested anonymity so they could speak easily regarding their previous company, stated the company had actually increased in Cambodia to assist expand its supply chain. The executive said Nike and various other brands’ presence had benefited employees in Cambodia and various other countries where it produces.

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Nike’s continued development in Cambodia highlights the degree of political and labor repression the firm has wanted to endure in countries that supply economical labor– letters of problem regardless of.

Voices of Concern and Protest

Yang Sophorn, head of state of the independent Cambodian Alliance of Profession Unions, was threatened in a July 2020 letter from the country’s labor ministry after joining workers that protested outside a garment factory, Violet Apparel. The manufacturing facility had actually shut unexpectedly throughout the pandemic.

The list below year, when Cambodian police opened fire and eliminated four garment workers during prevalent presentations over reduced wages, Nike and other brands sent the government a letter sharing “major worry.”

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Khun Tharo, program supervisor at the Center for Partnership of Labor and Human Rights, was targeted in 2015 after his company released a report determining spaces in manufacturing facility oversight. The federal government started auditing the legal aid team; Khun faced a criminal problem that he said his legal representative had actually been incapable to see.

After Nike in 2014 underwent $2 billion in price cutting that overmuch targeted its sustainability staff, including people working with foreign factory oversight, the former exec stated they fretted that Nike’s cuts had actually affected the business’s ability to involve with its stakeholders in the countries where its factories run.

Nike did not react straight to created questions from ProPublica regarding its growth in Cambodia amidst the country’s heightening political repression. Rather, it said in a statement: “We remain to engage with providers, industry organizations and other international stakeholders to create broad-based approaches to help reduce longer-term impacts.”

In its 2020 letter, the federal government informed Yang that she was breaking the regulation by prompting employees and pressuring the closed manufacturing facility to pay its workers. The letter claimed the labor ministry could liquify her independent union, which stands for more than 5,000 workers that make clothing in Nike manufacturing facilities. (The Cambodian labor ministry did not react to ProPublica’s request for comment about the letter.).

Brands, consisting of Nike, have actually had some influence. After workers were killed while objecting for greater salaries in 2014, brands sustained enhancing the base pay. The Cambodian government at some point developed a process to every year negotiate wage increases.

Ken Bathroom, a representative for the Cambodian garment sector’s profession organization, claimed thousands of unions are signed up in the country. “I do not agree with your assumption that there is a repressive atmosphere here in Cambodia,” he stated. “Private occurrences do not comprise the entire story.”

In the process, labor leaders have actually been jailed; opposing political leaders have actually entered into expatriation and been apprehended or eliminated; reporters have been secured and eliminated; and independent media electrical outlets have been shuttered by the government.

The previous Nike provider took place to come to be the topic of a long-standing dispute in between labor supporters and Nike over salaries that employees stated they were still owed. Ramatex, Violet Apparel’s parent firm, did not respond to ProPublica’s ask for remark. Nike has actually claimed openly it’s located no proof to support the accusations.

Since they supply more jobs for individuals in her country, Yang claimed she welcomes financial investments by Nike and other brands. She stated workers require great wages, the right to construct and defenses when manufacturing facilities close without paying them. “If they just come to exploit our workers, I don’t want them,” she said.

A lot of Cambodia’s unions are government-aligned teams that Human Rights Watch has called “instant noodle” unions due to the fact that they take much less time to make than a mug of noodles. Independent unions have actually long been under assault there, according to American, European and various other labor rights observers.

Industry Reactions and Disputes

Nineteen major apparel companies– from Adidas to VF Corp., proprietor of the North Face brand– adhered to up Sept. 10 with a joint letter objecting Cambodia’s attack on the team, also stating they had “serious issues.” Nike did not sign that letter.

Garment employees face law enforcement agent throughout a 2013 demonstration as the workers demand higher incomes at Sabrina Cambodia Garment Production, a Nike distributor. Sabrina claimed at the time it paid above the minimum wage and had begun talks with workers regarding their compensation after the protest ended.Credit:
Samrang Pring/Reuters

In 2018, after the federal government curbed union rights, Nike and other brand names again opposed, this time in a conference with government authorities. A sector representative explained the business in a press release as “significantly worried.”

After Donald Trump tried in 2025 to intestine government funded companies that published news about Cambodia’s political suppression, Hun Sen, Cambodia’s longtime leader, shared images of himself satisfying the united state head of state in 2017. Credit history:.
Screenshot by ProPublica.

For Nike and other brand names, “it has to do with securing their market and ease of access and likewise reputation. That’s all,” Khun stated. Without stress on brands to act, he stated, “they will refrain it. They will simply begin to ignore it.”

Much less than 2 months later on, the Trump management tried to gut Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, a few of the only information sources available in Cambodia’s indigenous language that reported on the country’s tyrannical turn. Former Prime Minister Hun Sen commended Trump’s “nerve,” posting a picture from 2017 of the two males smiling and drinking hands.

Two industry groups, among which counts Nike as an individual, contacted the government on July 12 stating they had “major worries” that the audit’s only function was revenge, condemning it “in the greatest feasible terms.”.

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The letter said the labor ministry could liquify her independent union, which stands for more than 5,000 workers who make clothing in Nike manufacturing facilities. Yang stated she welcomes financial investments by Nike and other brands due to the fact that they offer more work for individuals in her nation. Khun, the CENTRAL staffer, stated he understood the Nike employee who focused on corporate social duty in Cambodia, but he said she left the company within the last year.

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The previous Nike vendor went on to come to be the topic of a long-standing dispute between labor advocates and Nike over earnings that workers said they were still owed. Nike has actually claimed openly it’s discovered no evidence to support the claims.