Carolijn Terwindt

On 2 March 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic hit Cambodia, the entire workforce of the Hulu Garment factory was sent home in a lockdown. While Cambodian law specified that during the pandemic factories had to pay workers 40% of their wages, the factory initially let workers fend for themselves. Late in April, workers were summoned to the factory to finally sign their payslips, under which the factory hid a sentence saying the workers were resigning.

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MOST people have heard that on April 24, 2013, the Rana Plaza building complex collapsed killing 1,134 people and injuring around 1,800 workers. What not so many people know is that two factories in the building went through the auditing process of the Business Social Compliance Initiative before the collapse, without drawing any attention to possible workplace safety risks.