Karl Marx says Bangladesh Workers Unite!
Does anybody else hear Karl Marx telling all of us I told you so from his grave?
Bangladesh factory collapse: Who really pays for our cheap clothes?
April 25, 2013 -- Updated 1709 GMT (0109 HKT)
Editor's note: Anna McMullen is a campaigner for Labour Behind the Label which
calls itself a group "that supports garment workers' efforts worldwide
to improve their working conditions." She works with global partners on
campaigns around poverty wages in the fashion industry, and has
co-authored research reports on labor rights. Follow @labourlabel on Twitter.
(CNN) -- The sad fact behind the building collapse
in Bangladesh in whch hundreds died is that it isn't an isolated
problem. The story will leave the headlines at the end of this week but
on Monday hundreds of thousands of workers will return to factories that
are frankly further tragedies waiting to happen, and will keep
producing clothes for high street brands.
Seven hundred workers have died in factory collapses and fires in this very small region outside Dhaka alone in the last decade.
Savar, where the building
collapse took place, is a swampland (yes, swampland...) north of the
Bangladeshi capital which has seen mass growth in recent years.
This same region was the
site of a horrific factory fire in November last year, when 112 workers
burned alive in a building with no fire exits.
Hundreds of factories are
being thrown up in a short space of time, with limited building
regulations, to meet the growing demand from western brands for cheap
export clothing. And it is cheap. Wages for Bangladeshi workers are the
lowest in Asia, aside from the recently opened Myanmar industry, at $37 a month.
As the demand for cheap
clothing grows in the west, brands continue to look for ways to race to
the bottom on prices, and sadly this involves cutting corners on health
and safety. Brands will by no means admit to this.
The prices that they pay,
they assure us, are enough to pay workers enough to live on and keep
factories in tip top condition. But, faced with constantly decreasing
incomes, factory owners inevitably let things slide, like replacing
faulty machinery or fixing worrying building subsidence...
When garment factories
were still mainly based in retail countries, consumers knew people who
held jobs in factories, and had a personal connection with those who had
been injured or put at risk in the workplace.
But with globalization
has come consumer apathy. Who cares about people who make clothing? As
long as it is cheap we will buy it.
Especially in a
recession, cheap clothing is a welcome industry for many. People in
western countries living on the poverty line need to buy clothes for
their children.
Jobs in Bangladesh are
also vital for a country where hundreds of thousands of people live
below the poverty line. It isn't the responsibility of the consumer to
feel guilty about buying what is readily available in shops.
Business must stop just
holding up its hands to say: "It is not our fault -- they bought it."
The responsibility for ensuring that a product was made with human
rights in mind has to fall somewhere, and the United Nations guiding principles
on business and human rights says that it falls jointly to states and
mass corporate businesses to "protect, respect and remedy" human rights.
In short, the brands,
not the consumer, are the ones who must take responsibility for the
endemic problems that this industry faces.
So what can be done?
Many western brands rely on audits and in-house checks to monitor
whether conditions in their factories are up to scratch. In a country
where a little hand shake and a small exchange of money gets the job
done, this process often fails to give an accurate picture of factory
conditions, building and fire safety.
It is common for fire
extinguishers to be borrowed for inspection day, for workers to be
schooled in what answers they have to give when asked questions.
The Clean Clothes
Campaign together with local and global unions and labor rights
organizations, has developed a program that hopes to solve this. The
Bangladesh Building and Fire Safety Agreement is a proposal for a
sector-wide initiative that includes independent building inspections,
worker rights training, public disclosure and a long-overdue review of
safety standards.
The crucial element of
this is that unions and worker led committees take a central role in
monitoring and reporting back on improvements that need to be made, in a
public way.
This transparent and
practical agreement is unique in that it is supported by all key labor
stakeholders in Bangladesh and internationally. So far, U.S. company
PVH, owner of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, and German retailer
Tchibo have signed up to the program, but it needs a critical mass of
brand support to be implemented.
Joint memorandam of understanding on fire and building safety:
Labour Behind the Label and others are calling on all brands sourcing from Bangladesh to publicly sign up to take part in the building and fire safety scheme to make transparent, worker-led improvements to the industry.
In the wake of tragedies
such as yesterday's building collapse, the Tazreen fire in November,
and the nearby Spectrum factory collapse some years ago, something must
be done to make a change. This proposal is the best on the table by far.
How many more deaths
will it take to move brands from making CSR statements of regret, to
investing in a sustainable and safe industry? We hope none.
posted by Zarathustra at 4/25/2013 01:49:00 PM
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