From Factory Floors to Climate Frontlines: Women workers’ reframing union agendas for worker-led climate adaptation

Overview

This paper examines how women union leaders in Cambodia’s garment sector are reframing the labour agenda into a form of feminist climate governance from the ground up. In global supply chains that deepen precarity, indebtedness, and ecological degradation, women garment workers – largely from rural, low-income backgrounds – are at the frontlines of intersecting economic and climate crises. Rising temperatures at the workplace and inadequate ventilation systems have intensified cases of heat stroke, exhaustion, and even fatalities. Women workers are disproportionately impacted, with pregnant and menopausal women being especially vulnerable. These experiences illuminate how gendered inequalities intersect with broader labour and environmental vulnerabilities. Drawing from interviews, focus groups discussions, project documents, and field experiences, this paper explores how women workers in Cambodia’s garment factories are reclaiming their voice and demanding fair and just working conditions in the face of climate change. These demands signify more than material improvements; they represent a transformation in how women workers organise, mobilise knowledge, rights, and agency in spaces dominated by corporate and state power, turning everyday struggles into a platform for political agency and collective efforts to improve working conditions. This also reveals how the interaction between workers and management reshapes workplace dynamics and power relations, amplifying women’s voice in labour process and climate adaptation. These locally grounded practices represent a feminist reimagining of labour governance, where women’s experiential knowledge and solidarity drive worker-led transitions. Their actions challenge both patriarchal union hierarchies and the top-down nature of global adaptation policies, demonstrating the importance of democratising decision-making and recognising worker agency in labour processes.