Our reporters gained access to three of the world’s “special economic zones”—and found paradises for corporations and wastelands for workers’ rights.
UNDER CAMBODIAN LAW, THE RIGHT TO ORGANIZE IS SUPPOSED TO BE IRONCLAD. No employer, government agent or citizen may impede union activity. Inside the walls of Cambodia’s largest special economic zones (SEZs), however, In These Times’ reporters saw a system designed to tightly control the workforce by keeping workers fenced in and unions out. More than a dozen workers and labor activists confirmed that, while it’s not easy to independently organize anywhere in Cambodia, the law is flagrantly violated in SEZs. The result is seething discontent.
Over the past 50 years, more than half of the world’s countries have carved out pieces of their territories to hand over to foreign investors as SEZs. The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that more than 66 million people—most of them young migrant women—work in the world’s more than 3,000 SEZs.
After World War II, countries from Ireland to South Korea set up these zones in bids to attract foreign capital and create jobs. In the 1980s and 1990s, states in every region of the world followed suit. Today this model is experiencing a fresh surge in popularity, with countries from Burma to Cuba racing to open new zones.
Source: Inside the Corporate Utopias Where Capitalism Rules and Labor Laws Don’t Apply
