“It’s unbelievable that brands still refuse to sign a binding agreement with unions and labour groups to stop these unsafe working conditions from existing. Tragedy after tragedy shows that corporate-controlled monitoring has failed to protect workers’ lives.” – Sam Maher
A few months ago, a fire in a garment factory in Bangladesh killed 117 people. They were burned to death because the building had no emergency exits.
An eighth storey garment factory building collapsed in Bangladesh. More than 300 dead bodies are found till now. Many people are trapped inside the rubble. Many dead bodies are there. Let’s learn how it happens.
They are mostly girls. Poor girls are hired to work for garment factories in Bangladesh. Girls are cheaper. It is easy to exploit them. They work for the US and Europe. They work day and night without holidays and leaves .
They get harassed, abused, raped on their way back to home at late night. Their monthly salary is less then $37. This small amount of money can’t help make their dreams come true. The country will feel sorry for them for a couple of days. Then the poor girls will be forgotten again.
The girls who are working for the garment factories and are not dead yet will remain poor throughout their lives. They are not safe anywhere. They will continue to be exploited by their male members at home, by the strangers in the streets, by their employers at work.
Who cares if poor people die!
Heartbreaking pictures – I am very sorry for these needless deaths and offer my condolences.
This is the kind of tragedy that was entirely avoidable ; we should get much more organised against this kind of exploitation.
Most people think of Western Imperalism as military invasions leading to subjugation of the population and then stealing of raw materials. But isn’t this reported disaster a case of Western Imperialism? Companies like Primark want cheap clothing and use countries like Bangladesh to provide cheap labour in cheaply-erected factories unemcumbered by Western rates of pay and health and safety requirements. Now a factory has collapsed and the Western companies used it will be deep in huddled meetings mulling over how they get over the problems of paying compensation and restoring consumer confidence in their cheaply-made products as cheaply as possible so they can get on with making vast profits again. Is it any wonder people in countries like Bangladesh get angry and want these modern imperialists thrown out of their countries? The major problem is that without these imperialists what will Bangladeshis do for wages? How will they live? Chances are, as soon as new factories are built they will rush to get jobs that will allow them to at least survive. It should, therefore, be for consumers in Western countries to demand a change in the working conditions, but will they? When there’s a choice between cheap clothing or factory workers only seen when desaster strikes blindness to the factory workers’ plight is such an easy option.
on d quest for money livelihood Bangladesh people as a whole , quick constructed cheap factories n bulidings endangered lives of its young people , tragic , was unable to see d pictures
I find the fact that we don’t have laws requiring imported goods to be produced under conditions (workers’ rights, environmental protection and so forth) that would be acceptable in the destination country, extremely telling.
It basically says that it’s OK to treat foreign workers in ways in which it’s not OK to treat British workers.
This has to change.
It needs political will to make it happen, and it will need to be introduced in phases to avoid making the problems worse; but as long as we continue importing goods made in conditions we have deemed unfit for ourselves, we are exporting misery.
In the early 1800s some English agricultural labourers were arrested and locked up for acting collectively against their employers. These workers became known as ‘The Tolpuddle martyrs’. The British establishment then passed laws called Combination Acts which criminalised collective action by workers.
Later on the British government, under Tory leader Benjamin Disraeli, passed laws to enable Trade Unions to
collect membership fees, set up bank accounts, elect officials, and suchlike. Once this happened, trade unions thought of sponsoring their own party, called ‘The Labour Party’. The idea of trade unions and working class action also became popular in France and Germany, and enlightened members of the ruling class realised that when trade unions agitated against low wages, coal mine accidents and boiler explosions there might be economic advantages in regulating the use of high pressure boilers etc. Factory Acts made it illegal for factory owners to put heavy weights on safety valves.
About 100 years after Disraeli, the UK conservative government under Margaret Thatcher made a determined effort to eradicate trade union power making use propaganda to get the public to accept this. Part of the stratagy was to move production off shore. Coal could be mined in Colombia, and garments could be made in cheap labour countries (Bangladesh, Thailand) where trade union activists coud be freely hunted and put to death. These people were essentially following the footsteps of Adolf Hitler who realised the political benefits of torturing and killing trade union people, even before he turned on the Jews.
This climate made it easier for employers to lock firedoors in factories. Language became adapted to express the lie that this flouting of safety rules, and the suppression of trade unions was beneficial to workers. American politicians and media were quick to call states which had tough anti-union legislation ‘Right to Work’ states.
Those people in the “democracies’ who have voted for parties seeking to suppress Trade Unions bear some responsibility for the horrendous accidents in ‘cheap labour countries’.
Here in Kolkata too, illegal constructions are going on at full swing. 🙁
^This.
Thanks, Capitalism.
I think a problem is that too many people see a guy blow up a bomb, and they say “O, that guy killed people on purpose.” Then, they see a fire in an unsafe factory and think “O, a terrible accident.” Building an unsafe factory is really just as much a conscious act of violence since there WILL BE fires and explosions and there WILL BE deaths with a pretty high degree of certainty. Instead of being fined, owners of unsafe businesses should be charged as murderers, put on trial s murders, and convicted and sentenced as murderers. Not just the people on the ground in Bangladesh, but the Western nations that really put the money there.
Something I always find disgusting is how businesses argue that it’s some subsidiary/outside firm that’s really running the factories and they’re just buying stuff. Laws need to be passed that make retailers and importers 100% accountable for everything that happens down the supply chain.