Bangladesh where the government has declared a period of national mourning for more than 120 garment workers who died in a fire at a factory supplying U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart, among others. The fire broke out Saturday evening at a garment factory in the suburbs of the capital Dhaka as its mostly women employees worked overtime to meet holiday rush orders for overseas customers. Survivors said an exit door was locked, fire extinguishers didnt work, and that when the fire alarm went off, their bosses ordered them to stay at their sewing machines. Victims were trapped or jumped to their deaths from the eight-story building, which had no emergency exits or fire escapes. Meanwhile, a second fire broke out in a separate garment factory in Dhaka, though no deaths were reported. Thousands of a garment workers have taken to the streets over the past two days to protest their unsafe conditions and demand justice. Survivors of the fire were among them.
The protests follow a work stoppage earlier this year, when 300 factories in Bangladesh shut down for almost a week over demands for higher wages and better conditions. Fire officials in the country say more than 500 workers there have died in clothing factory accidents since 2006. Bangladesh is the main supplier of garments for Wal-Mart. At first, the company said it could not confirm whether it was still doing business with the Tazreen factory that caught fire. But, it later confirmed a subcontractor had in fact placed orders there.
Kalpona Akter has visited the factory and took pictures of the charred clothing labels she found there, including the Wal-Mart brand, faded glory. Kalpona Akter is a labor organizer with the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity. She started work in garment factories when she was 12. Now, she campaigns for better wages, recognition of the right to organize, and higher safety standards. She was imprisoned for more than a month in 2010 and still faces criminal charges after.
Kalpona Akter talking:
I had a chance to go inside that factory after it was fully burned. When I got into the factory, it just shocked me when I saw that in the downstairs there is a piling of yarn and fabrics which is totally burned. And I shocked because they have [Unintelligible] stairs and all those, and then in that [Unintelligible]. So literally, as workers stated that they hear about fire alarm and they tried to evacuate from the factory, but they couldnt go out because of the fire in the stairs. So, this is first shocking me. Then, I went to the production floor to see how it is, and it is surprised me when I found these international brands like Faded Glory, which is one of the Wal-Mart label. I found [Unintelligible] label in that production floor. I found Enyce. I found documents of [Unintelligible], I found document of Carita. I found [Unintelligible] in these factories, so, it is really, really surprised me because these al these [Unintelligible], they say that they are complianced, but, I really dont know complianced. They may mean that complianced means they [have] all the documentation not at the factories.
This is really gives me a sense when I saw the factory garment floor, first floor, top floor, I mean all the floors at least three floor I found that door has been locked after the floors burned. So, literally, these workers was tapped when they were try try to get out from the factory after they saw the fire factory caught fire.
And after hearing the reaction of Wal-Mart that they are cutting out that they are cutting and running from this factory, it is surprised me. You know, when this factory was producing them, I dont believe that they not have that information, cause [Unintelligible] factory is making clothes for Wal-Mart. Definitely they had that information. And [Unintelligible] now after borrowing and 112 or 120 workers dead, they cannot just wash their hands and say that, OK, we will not do any business with them. They have to be with this factory and improve the safety standards in the factory. That is our demand. And they have to pay the compensation to these workers, also, because they were buying clothes from this factory.
Wal-Mart just cannot say that they will just go now and that they didnt know that this factory was producing for them. This is our response to the Wal-Mart, our reaction to the Wal-Mart. They cannot just clean their hand and say that we are just cutting and running. They have to stay with this factory and they have to ensure the safetys improving the safety standards in all the factories they are sourcing from Bangladesh.
considering seeing these fires in these factories, I would say that whatever they say in their website, they are doing that as a documentation, not in the factories. OK, the Wal-Mart should do more on that. Whatever they saying in this their Web site in terms of the safety-ness, they have to start the practice in this factories. That they need to do it immediately.
We are facing criminal charges, me in my colleague, facing charges because we are raising the voice for better wage for our workers, because there are workers in Bangladesh who making clothes for Western brands, they are getting $27 as a minimum wage per month, which is not enough for their [Unintelligible]. So, we are supporting workers voice to having a decent living wage for them. And this is one of the reasons why we are facing all of these criminal charges.
Im really proud to be working with Aminul Islam. He was an incredible, great organizer, who was he was working at the suburb industrial belt which is most directly located in that Dhaka [Unintelligible] and he was a front-liner, organizer, in the field who was organizing workers to raise their voice to join with union and also supported their voice to have a decent living wage for them and decent living wage for them to survive. So, Aminul became the enemy on these industry. All the security intelligence when he was supporting workers voices, when he was supporting, or helping with their grievances. So, this is the one way that they targeted Aminul and finally, they killed him.
after this massive death and this accident we are hearing this message from our Prime Minister when shes saying that it is a sabotage and, I mean, rather saying that safety standards wasnt enough in that factory. Now, all these political group giving a political color of this accident. We are really concerned at how they are regarding this issue. Rather putting the focus on that factory really the garment factory is really in a vulnerable condition in terms of fire safety, in terms of a safe working place. So I think the issue is being diverting, saying that it was a sabotage, it was a arson, it is a conspiracy. I dont believe there was any conspiracy on this.
we need these jobs. We have a huge unemployment. We need these jobs, but, it is really time to say and let well known that we need these jobs with dignity. We need these jobs with a safe working place. Our workers working here, and working for the Westerners, but did not give any license to anyone to kill them like they have been killed in [Unintelligible].
Scott Nova talking:
the central concern is that Bangladesh is now the second largest producer of apparel in the world and it got to that position after China. By giving retailers like Wal-Mart exactly what they want which is the cheapest labor costs in the world. And they achieve those low labor costs by paying minimum wages of 18 to 20 cents an hour and by completely ignoring fundamental worker safety protections. As a result, you have a massive industry with more than 3 million workers that is defined by sub-poverty wages and extreme dangers for workers inside the workplace. The fundamental change that is necessary here is for buyers like Wal-Mart to be willing to pay a price to the factories for the clothing sufficient to make it possible for the factories to produce in a safe and responsible manner. And yet, Wal-Mart and the others refuse to increase the prices they paid to factories to make it possible for them to operate safely.
Wal-Mart is a company whose foundation corporate principle is cost reduction through absolute control over supply chain logistics and production information, and yet, now, they want us to believe that they have so little control over their supply chain that have no idea which factories are actually making their clothing. To say the least, its strange credulity. The bottom line is, Wal-Mart goods, as theyve now admitted, were being produced in this factory and Wal-Mart is responsible for protecting the rights and safety of the workers who make its clothing.
Bangladesh is a poor country with high unemployment, that these workers should be happy with whatever jobs and whatever wages and and whatever conditions they get from Western brands and retailers because it is better than nothing. But, the reality is, any worker who works making clothing for a brand like Wal-Mart or a retailer like Gap and through that work is contributing profits to those companies has the right to be paid a decent wage. And most importantly, has a right to work in a workplace where they dont take their life in their hands of every day when they come to work. So, it is an absurd point of view.
were working with range of organizations around the country including with universities who have licensing deals with important sports apparel companies to pressure those brands and retailers to behave responsibly in terms of the way they operate their global supply chains. One brand PVH, which owns Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger did agree after a fire in 2010 to make a series of binding fire safety commitments in an agreement with Bangladeshi and international unions and labor rights organizations. And that agreement, if implemented, and will begin to make real change and protect lives in Bangladesh. Unfortunately, the key players in Bangladesh, like Gap and Wal-Mart, have failed to join that agreement and continue to refuse to take meaningful action to protect the lives, to protect the safety of the workers who make their clothing.
This factory fire in Bangladesh recalls a similar tragedy more than 100 years ago here in the United States at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. It was the deadliest workplace accident in New York Citys history and a seminal moment for American labor.
On March 25, 1911, nearly 150 garment workers, mostly young immigrant women, Jewish and Italian, died after a fire broke out at the Triangle Factory. Only a year before, workers had protested for shorter hours, better pay, safer worker conditions in the right to unionize. The fire began when a lit cigarette or match ignited a fire on the eighth for the factory building. Flames quickly trapped the women in a deadly inferno.
The Triangle fire, of course, galvanized the social reform movement that ultimately transformed the U.S. apparel industry from a sweat shop industry to one defined by middle-class wages and safe workplaces. Unfortunately, the response of the U.S. apparel industry to those improvements was to leave the United States and relocate to production to countries like Bangladesh where they could re-institute this model of ultra low cost production achieved through sub-poverty wages lax regulation, lack of basic respect for worker rights and worker safety.
So, we see, now, more than 100 years after the Triangle fire, a replication of the results of those brutal conditions, and the parallels are startling. At the Triangle fire a time of the Triangle fire, as in this factory in Tazreen, workers were working on a Saturday, workers were working through the weekend. The fire started likely as a result, in the Tazreen case, of an electrical short. You heard the reasons for the fire in Triangle. In both cases a complete lack of adequate fire safety provisions, inadequate fire exits for workers. The result is people were trapped in both cases in the building and more than 100 in each case died.
And so, it really is an extraordinary achievement in an ironic sense that the U.S. apparel industry has managed to replicate early 20th century conditions that were so brutal and cruel to workers, now again here in 2012 in factories in places like Bangladesh. It is a shameful record for the U.S. apparel industry, a shameful record for companies like Wal-Mart and Gap. And hopefully, this horror will finally galvanized a global push for genuine reform of the labor practices of the big apparel brands and retailers.
One of the purposes of the system of global outsourcing is to enable companies like Wal-Mart to distance themselves from responsibility for the wages and working conditions of the workers who make their clothing. And, of course, thats what we see them now trying to do in this case, distance themselves from responsibility that they clearly bear.
You know, both Wal-Mart and Gap, who are two of the biggest players in Bangladesh, have been urged for years to put in place meaningful fire safety protections in their supply chain after a similar fire in late 2010 that killed 30 workers in a factory producing primarily for Gap. Gap made a public pledge that they would institute a meaningful fire safety program, and through months of negotiations between ourselves and a range of other labor rights organizations, we tried to get Gap to a simple, basic commitments to put in place protections for their workers in Bangladesh and yet theyve refused to take those steps, pulled out of the negotiations, and continue to be unwilling to do the things that are necessary to protect workers, which include independent fire safety inspections in these factories, insuring that there are adequate fire safety systems compelling suppliers that dont have them to put them in place. A commitment to stop doing business with suppliers to refuse to operate in a safe manner. Of particular importance, a commitment to pay a price to suppliers that makes a possible for them to operate in a safe and responsible manner and still survive as a business. These are the steps that Gap and Wal-Mart and other big players in Bangladesh need to take, and the steps they continue to refuse to take even in the wake of fires like this.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke earlier this year in Dhaka in Bangladesh. it would be better if those sentiments were actually reflected in U.S. trade policy and if the U.S. put genuine pressure on U.S. corporations and on overseas suppliers in places like Bangladesh in the context of U.S. trade relationships to compel greater respect for the rights of workers. Unfortunately, our trade policy does not do that.
Hillary Clinton was also she was on the board of Wal-Mart for years. At a certain point in time, the individuals who lead these companies need to be held accountable as individuals.
Kalpona Akter talking:
The consumers can play a big role because they are the most powerful player in the supply chain. They can make accountable these brands and make them bound to make change on the ground where workers are making clothes for these Western brands. These consumers group can raise their voice and they should raise their voice and ask these factories sorry, ask these Western brands that they wanted to know more, more about the working conditions of the workers who are making clothes for them, and also, why to be sure that these workers are paying living wage, these workers are having a better life, better working condition, and safe working place. They can play a really, really vital role, and this is my urge to the U.S. consumers, that, please, be accountable and make responsible to your brands and ask them to make change in the ground.
Scott Nova talking:
The best hope we have is that retailers like Wal-Mart and Gap and H&M will recognize that if they continue to operate in this manner, if they continue to pressure their suppliers on price to the point where we get these kinds of the absurdly unsafe working conditions, that ultimately consumers will turn against them. And so, consumers in the U.S., consumers in Europe do have the power to compel change if they choose to use it.
– source democracynow.org
Kalpona Akter, A labor organizer with the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity. She started work in garment factories when she was 12 years old. Now she campaigns for better wages, recognition of the right to organize and higher safety standards.
Scott Nova, Executive Director of the Worker Rights Consortium, which investigates working conditions in factories around the world.