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| Factory collapse Bangladesh |
Think
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Occupied Territories/Palestine,
and others in South Central Asia/Middle East/Persia/ North and Eastern Africa: endless
destruction with impunity
Editing and commentary by
Carolyn Bennett
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orporations ─ particularly Western corporations ─ treat
workers as the U.S. government, in foreign relations, treats sovereign peoples.
Affairs of merchants and governments cast in a model of constant destruction, in
defiance and deliberately dismissive of international convention. In the news this week: Who signs and who refuses to sign an international Accord on Fire and Building Safety in
Bangladeshi factories?
More than reasonable Accord
The safety agreement set forth after Bangladeshi workers
died repeatedly in factory fires and unsafe, collapsing buildings requires companies
to conduct independent safety inspections, make their reports on factory
conditions public, and cover the costs for needed repairs. It also calls for companies
to pay up to $500,000 annually toward the effort; and to stop doing business
with any factory that refuses to make safety upgrades and refuses to allow
workers and their unions to have a voice in factory safety.
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| Bangladeshi women working in factory |
Research by the advocacy group, International Labor Rights
Forum, found that since 2005, at least 1,800 workers have died in Bangladeshi
garment industry factory fires and building collapses. The two latest tragedies
(fires and collapse) in the Bangladesh’s garment industry pushed the alarm: a
building collapse on April 24 this year was the industry’s worst disaster in
history, leaving more than a thousand people dead; The November 2012 fire in
another garment factory in Bangladesh left 112 workers dead.
Callous merchants careless of Bangladeshi life
Retailers staying in Bangladesh and or refusing to sign the
fire and safety accord include: H&M, Wal-Mart, The Children’s Place, Mango,
J.C. Penney, Gap, Benetton, and Sears
Those refusing to sign the international Accord on Fire and
Building Safety in Bangladesh are, according to the Washington Post, “Nearly
all U.S. clothing chains.”
Wal-Mart, Gap, Target, J.C. Penney
had been pressed by labor groups to sign the document in the wake of last
month’s factory collapse in Bangladesh that killed at least 1,127 people.
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| Bangladesh |
Found in the April Rana Plaza rubble were labels and
purchase orders of retailers Benetton, Cato Fashions, The Children’s Place, El
Corte Inglés, and Loblaw (owner of Joe Fresh).
Sign of care
The legally-binding, first-of-its-kind contract requiring
Western businesses to help finance improvements in the factories they use in
Bangladesh and calling for independent building inspections, public disclosure
of audit results, mandatory building renovations to address hazards, and union
access to factories to educate workers on their rights and their safety was
signed by more than a dozen European retailers
Signers of the five-year international Accord on Fire and
Building Safety in Bangladesh include H&M (a Swedish chain and the largest
clothing buyer in Bangladesh), C&A (Netherlands), Marks & Spencer, Tesco
and Primark (UK retailers), PvH Corp. (owner of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger
brands, the only major U.S. company to sign the contract), Tchibo (a German
coffee retailer selling clothes), and Inditex (owner of the Zara chain of Spain),
El Corte Inglés (Spain), Carrefour (France), Benetton (Italy)
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| Bangladeshi women mourn their dead |
representative of Clean
Clothes Campaign, Ineke Zeldenrust, told the press that, “The accord includes
all of the components essential to be effective: independent safety inspections
with public reports, mandatory repairs and renovations, the obligation by
brands and retailers to underwrite the costs and to terminate business with any
factory that refuses to make necessary safety upgrades, and a vital role for
workers and their unions.” The heart of the agreement “is the commitment by
companies to pay for the renovations and repairs necessary to make factory
buildings in Bangladesh safe.”
But this was too burdensome for the world’s No. 1 retailer, Wal-mart (USA), which was also implicated in the November Tazreen Fashions factory fire that
left 112 people dead. To burdensome for Gap that, according to the Post, has “contracts
with 78 of Bangladesh’s 6,500 factories.”
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| Found the rubble Bangladesh |
Global call to solidarity
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lobal citizens have weighed in sending messages to international
brands sourcing from Bangladesh, calling on brands to take immediate action in
implementing sustainable safety measures in their supplier factories in order
to prevent another tragedy such as Rana Plaza.
This week labor-rights activists worldwide banded together
to persuade Western companies to sign the Bangladesh safety accord.
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| Found in the rubble Bangladesh |
Trade unions and labor-rights groups worldwide ─ including
the Clean Clothes Campaign, International Labor Rights Forum, Avaaz, United
Students Against Sweatshops, War on Want, Causes, IndustriAll Global Union,
SumOfUs.org, Change.org, and Maquila Solidarity Network ─ banded together in a unified campaign to
persuade Western companies to sign the safety accord. Petitions were launched by
the Clean Clothes Campaign, the Labor Rights Forum, the War on Want, AVAAZ, the
Causes, the U.S. Students Against Sweatshops, Gap Death Traps, the CREDO Action,
the Fashion Takes Action, the Change.org, the Sumofus.org
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| West consumed Bangladeshis died |
General Secretary of IndustriAll Global Union, Jyrki Raina,
says the standards enunciated in the accord are “straightforward, commonsense
measures that will have a vital impact on worker safety in factories in
Bangladesh. And it is time for all other brands to commit to sustainable safety”
in this country.
I am thinking
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| How much is enough How much "more" harms? |
- How much does any one person or entity, merchant or corporate owner need ─ even allowing for a few perks, surprises or “special” stuff but not for the criminal waste committed routinely by the West?
- How much does grabbing “more” deny true need and cause destitution and or death; and what are the moral implications of this?
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| Waste |
- How much are peoples of Western nations willing to forego,
give up, do without to secure human rights and justice for all workers, all peoples
of the world ─ immediate neighbors to Bangladeshi workers?
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I believe
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that while it is clearly important that corporations and
governments are reined in, monitored, regulated and checked ─ it is also
imperative that in every pursuit and interaction including market interactions ordinary
people (we) live our “ethics” and our humanity. No land is an island; no people
are apart.
Sources and notes
“Big retailers back safety accord in Bangladesh” ( Posted:
7:30 p.m. Monday, Updated: 7:34 p.m. Monday), Copyright 2013 by The Associated Press. All
rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed. http://www.wral.com/big-retailers-back-safety-accord-in-bangladesh/12440691/
“Win for Bangladesh,” http://www.ecouterre.com/hm-zara-commit-to-signing-bangladesh-fire-and-safety-agreement/bangladesh-fire-3/
http://www.ecouterre.com/international-support-for-improving-bangladesh-safety-surpasses-1-million/
“Most U.S. clothing chains did not sign pact on Bangladesh
factory reforms” (by Brad Plumer, published: May 15, 2013, © The Washington
Post Company), http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/most-us-clothing-chains-did-not-sign-pact-on-bangladesh-factory-reforms/2013/05/15/4290133a-bd93-11e2-97d4-a479289a31f9_story.html
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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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