Indeed, the Better Factories program may have served to co-opt unionization efforts.
But when a set of international trade quotas ended in 2005, Better Factories was effectively neutered.
To qualify for an export licence, garment factories must register with the International Labour Organisation's Better Factories Cambodia (BFC) monitoring programme.
A report by Better Factories Cambodia, a program of the International Labor Organization, highlighted concerns about workplace safety last month, including "a worrying increase in fire safety violations".
Jill Tucker, chief technical adviser at Better Factories Cambodia, explains that nearly 15,000 workers called into its Interactive Voice Response programme in March.
And in Cambodia the Better Factories Cambodia program, administered by the I.L.O. in collaboration with the Cambodian government, has significantly improved not just working conditions but also workers' rights, even as Cambodia's exports have grown briskly.
China's investment levels are high in international terms — manufacturing investment reached 10.3 trillion renminbi, or $1.6 trillion, last year, up 31.8 percent from 2010 — with much of the spending resulting in newer, better factories.
"The better builders will know what the better factories are," he said, explaining that modular manufacturers generally do not deal directly with consumers but instead sell through affiliated builders.
Ever better chips mean ever increasing sales, which mean ever more money with which to build ever better factories for ever better chips.The firm's top brass attributes much of the company's success in harnessing this virtuous circle to the fact that it both designs and makes its chips, with ten chip factories ("fabs" in industry argot) operating and two more under construction.
Evidence that stronger public-private cooperation could lead to better outcomes is offered by the Cambodian garment industry, whose trade agreement with the United States made imports from the country conditional on improved labor standards enforced by the International Labor Organization in the Better Factories Cambodia program.
