Originally published on the CGS blog on April 29, 2014.
April 24th marked the one-year anniversary of the Rana Plaza building collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
This devastating collapse killed more than 1,100 people and injured 2,500 more. By no means the first industrial accident in Bangladesh’s history, though certainly the most devastating, the collapse was the result of turning a blind eye to the factory’s structural problems by the local owner and the failure of international corporations like Walmart to properly ensure that their supply chains meets minimum safety standards for workers in countries such as Bangladesh.
The garment industry plays an enormous role in Bangladesh’s economy. It is now the world’s second largest apparel producer, behind China, and Bangladesh’s 5,600 garment factories employ 4 million people, 90 percent of whom are women, and produce $20 billion in exports every year. Because this industry dominates the economy, workers often have no choice but to take jobs in unsafe factories for what little income they can earn. The Rana Plaza factory produced clothing for as many as 28 foreign brands,including Walmart and Benetton.
In the aftermath of the Rana Plaza disaster, a victims’ compensation fund was set up with the help of the International Labour Organization (a United Nations organization). $40 million in funding was meant to come from companies linked to the disaster; however, disappointingly,only half of the international brand name clothing manufacturers linked to Rana Plaza have paid into the fund. According to Human Rights Watch, Irish clothing firm Primark has donated $8 million of the $15 million in the fund while 15 other brands whose clothes were manufactured in the factory have contributed nothing. To date, many victims have only received around $645 from the fund.
Additionally, as a result of largely voluntary moves by international corporations to self-regulate, there are signs that some factories in Bangladesh are being upgraded and that safety conditions have begun to improve in the past year. However, the rights of workers, no matter what country or industry they work in, cannot be left to the good will and altruism of individuals or companies. As we have seen, only an event like the Rana Plaza collapse and the outcry that it caused will move international corporations to ensure that their employees, including those in subcontracted factories in countries like Bangladesh, have the safe working conditions that they deserve.
Certainly, tighter domestic controls are necessary as well. The government of Bangladesh has been derelict in adequately ensuring that its citizens have safe working conditions and this tragedy pushed the government to enact new labor protections, including loosening restrictions on union organizing. Unfortunately, it remains to be seen whether conditions will actually improve for workers.
You may come across arguments (like this one) that Bangladesh simply cannot afford to raise safety standards. Regulations, this author argues, will “destroy the jobs that are helping millions of others escape extreme poverty.” But this is an unacceptable argument in light of the fact that the international corporations whose goods are produced in factories like Rana Plaza reap enormous profits while factory workers (even after wage increases in the wake of Rana Plaza) earn barely more than $2 per day and risk their lives simply by going to work. The right to work in a safe environment is a fundamental human right; one which is no less applicable in Bangladesh that it is in the United Kingdom or the United States.
