Second-largest garment exporter in the world

The death toll in Bangladesh has topped 200 after an eight-story garment factory building collapsed with thousands of workers inside. More than 1,000 people were injured, and an unknown number of workers are still trapped in the wreckage. Cracks had been found in the building, but workers say the factory owners forced them to go to work anyway. Protests broke out in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka today as angry workers blocked key highways, marched on several factories, and rallied outside the headquarters of Bangladesh’s main manufacturers group. The disaster comes exactly five months after a massive fire killed at least 112 garment workers at Bangladesh’s Tazreen factory, which made clothing sold by Wal-Mart, among other companies. We’re joined by two guests: Kalpona Akter, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, and Charlie Kernaghan, director of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights.

Charlie Kernaghan talking:

Bangladesh now is the second-largest garment exporter in the world, right after China. And as a matter of fact, the Chinese garment factories are moving to Bangladesh because of the low wages, 14 cents an hour up to about 24 cents an hour. The workers are hard-working; they work 14 hours a day. They’ll work often seven days a week. Bangladesh is sacrificing all of these young women, who are just being brutalized, starvation wages. There is no right to organize in Bangladesh. There are no unions with collective contracts. Every time the workers try—like Kalpona mentioned, every time the workers try to organize, they’re beaten. They bring in gang members. They threaten them. Something has to change. And the labels, you know, like a Wal-Mart, you know, maybe they’ll pay nine cents for a garment. I mean, that’s all they care about. So, this thing is completely out of control, and unfortunately there’s so much corruption that this is a sinkhole.

once the building collapsed, it was impossible for workers to try to go through and find the labels, but for certain, Primark from U.K., Joe Fresh from Canada. There was definitely Children’s Place. They said maybe that was two months ago that they were in that factory. Cato, which has 13 stores—1,300 stores across the United States, they’re involved. More and more is coming in. Wal-Mart is even saying that maybe they might have had—they might have had their clothing being sown in Ether Tex, which was one of the factories in this building collapse.

And it was absolutely just as Kalpona said and the others, is the workers were told that if they didn’t go in on Wednesday to work, that they would not be paid for the month, because the owners said, “We won’t have the money to pay for the whole month, and therefore, if you don’t go to work, you will not receive any pay for a full month.” Nobody in Bangladesh, no worker in Bangladesh could ever go for a full month without wages. They go from hand to mouth. So, the workers were literally put in a trap.

in the chaos, and not having access to the factory, which has completely collapsed, like I said, we do know that a label in the U.K., Primark, was in that factory. We do know that Cato, a U.S. company with 1,300 stores across the United States, they definitely were there. There were Canadian companies were there, Joe Fresh label. It’s going to take a little time to get this information out. Like you said, Wal-Mart may very well have been producing in Ether Tex, which was one of the factories that collapsed. But I think it’s going to take some time. The 700, 800 workers are still trapped. And, you know, the death toll is definitely going to rise. This is going to be like so tragic for the people of Bangladesh.

Kalpona Akter talking:

After the Tazreen factory fire, there was a lot of promise or commitment has given by the government, but none of them has been accomplished. And just three weeks back or four weeks back, one Bangladeshi fire action plan has been signed, typewriter-signed by the government. But, you know, the time and the component it has, it is overambitious. So, literally, there is—no development has been done after the Tazreen fire which can prevent this death.

And in addition to the retailers, what Charlie was saying, I just wanted to mention there was another retailer from Italy. It’s called Benetti—Benetton, and they have retail stores in here. And these who—those logos of the labels we found, my colleagues has found, in the factory under the rubble, these retailers cannot just wash their hand and say, “We didn’t do production there.” They have responsibility. They cannot just go away from this responsibility and say that “We didn’t sew, or we didn’t produce, make clothes in this factory.”

Charlie Kernaghan talking:

they have to do with an enormous amount of corruption across Bangladesh, including the government, but especially the garment factories. This is a deadly situation. The workers are going to have to have the right to organize a union. They’re going to have to have a voice. They’re going to have to be able to bargain collectively. Right now I would say the situation is completely out of control, and there are no rights that the workers are receiving. And this is just a spiral to the bottom, and it’s led by the big retailers like the Wal-Marts, that just all they want is to suck the blood out of these workers and pay them the lowest amount possible. Something has to change, and I think the American people, as we’re one of the largest recipients of these garments, we have to stand up and say enough is enough. These are young women. These are all young women, actually, in this factory, 18, 19 years old, that have been killed and that are trapped. This has to stop.

There was a recent attempt in a meeting in Europe to create a compensation fund, and all of the major American companies that were producing there at Tazreen—Wal-Mart, Gap, Disney—all boycotted and refused to get involved in any compensation fund.
The meeting has happened in Geneva April 15th, where four of the European brands, they participated. One of them was over phone. But all the U.S. retailers—like Wal-Mart; Sean Combs; Soffe, who was one of the sourcing companies from Tazreen; Dickies; Disney; Sears—all of them, they denied to, you know, participate in this meeting. So, in this meeting, there was a—you know, discussion was to pay the compensation to the workers. But none of the U.S. brands has been participated.

This collapse of this factory—by the way, the person from Tazreen, as far as I know, Delwar Hossain, is walking away scot-free. And the owner of the Rana Plaza, Sohel Rana, apparently has disappeared. And they’re going to go away scot-free. They’re not going to do any jail time. We have to, you know, stop this, and we have to demand more of our own government. We have to demand that the United States trade representative’s office will actually try to implement the laws, and if not, there’s going to be penalties for these companies.

the starkness of these killings, whether it’s the 112 who were burned to death in Tazreen or whether it’s the collapse of the Rana Plaza where the death toll is going to vastly exceed the 210 that are already known to be dead, 600, 700, 800 people still trapped, this isn’t a game. We need to do something that’s very, very concrete. We don’t exist to take care of the labels, and we don’t exist to take care of Wal-Mart’s profits. What we need are worker rights. And we don’t get those from Wal-Mart. We get those from unions and from union organizing. And Bangladesh is going to have to allow workers to organize independent unions. Every time a union has tried to organize, the thugs come in, the gangsters come in, the gangs come in. They beat the workers up. We have to say, as a country, if we’re the United States and we’re one of the largest importers of these goods from Bangladesh, we have a voice. And we need the workers in Bangladesh to have their right to organize a union. They have a right to have freedom and democracy. They have a right to speak out. And they have a right to demand change. And, I mean, if we keep talking to Wal-Mart, we’re going nowhere. It’s the workers need their rights. That’s what we really need.

– source democracynow.org

Charles Kernaghan, director of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights.

Kalpona Akter, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity. She started work in garment factories when she was 12. She is currently in the United States to call on retailers like Wal-Mart, The Gap and Disney to take the lead on improving working conditions in Bangladesh.