Working Life

Take your shirt off. Or your pants. Almost certainly those garments and others were made in a faraway country, by people making pennies who work in horrendous conditions. I think we all know that when we are told to think about it—but we don’t think about it on a daily basis. I talk with Sonia […]

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Just about every piece of clothing you put on is made with blood, sweat and tears of exploited labor. I revisit the April 2013 murder of 1,138 garment workers in Bangladesh with my two guests, two women global labor leaders: Christy Hoffman, the deputy secretary of the 20-million member UNI and Nazma Akter, who began working […]

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I have written often that the only way we stop the killing of workers and the widespread thievery of billions of dollars is to put executives in jail. Fines are complete nonsense and a cost of doing business. Take away their liberty and you start to get their attention. Uh, hello. Attention. Just on The […]

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Two years ago, Rana Plaza collapsed in Bangladesh, killing 1,138 garment workers and injuring 2,400 others; many of the injured live today with physical problems that make it hard for them to work, not to mention the grief many of them live with because of loved ones killed in the disaster.

This was murder, plain and simple. The deaths of the 1,138 must be remembered because they were victims of greed, the greed that is the linchpin of the economic system around the world, including the U.S., that places profits before the lives of people.

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This Friday will mark the second anniversary of the Rana Plaza mass murder of 1,138 garment workers. I use the word “murder” because the collapse of the eight-story building that housed sweatshop garment factories wasn’t some astonishing surprise. It happened because international garment companies–like Benetton, Primark, Matalan, and Mango –exploited people for huge profits, not caring a whit about their conditions in slave-like conditions half way around the globe; those companies happily pocketed billions of dollars in profits and signed deals year after year with sleazy contractors who operated unsafe, dangerous factories.

After a huge outcry following the collapse, an accord was signed between labor rights advocates, international union representatives and NGOs, on the one hand, and garment companies, on the other hand, calling for payments by the companies to upgrade safety and set up a monitoring scheme to try to prevent future Rana Plaza-like mass murders.

But, even just paying a pittance apparently seems beyond the moral compass of these companies who are stiffing the accord’s budget.

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Over the years, I’ve consistently referred to Wal-Mart as The Beast of Bentonville because of its conduct at every level. Beastly. And, now, it’s topping even the despicable low standards it set to date. To the families of more than 1,200 people killed, and many more injured, who are seeking a bit of compensation money, the Beast of Bentonville is raising its corporate middle finger and saying “get fucked”.

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There has been this back and forth about how to improve conditions between the companies who make a profit on the backs of dead people…well, truly, that’s the reality of profits in the garment industry — you either die standing up at work, die later because your body is broken down from slaving away for pennies or you die quickly, or perhaps slowly, when places like the Rana Plaza collapse. Now, there is a new turn in the story — and I remain skeptical still that much will change.

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This “garment” comes cheap to billion-dollar corporations like Wal-Mart — a $45 million outlay to cover up safety and health in factories in Bangladesh. Cheap. At the cost of more human life, you can bank on it.

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Panic is setting in among some of those retailers who troll the far reaches of the planet looking for cheap labor to exploit. And it’s a panic that is about loss of profit and control.

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Well, I saw a day or two ago that the Administration was going to cut off Bangladesh’s trade preferences. In one sense, okay, finally. But, on the other hand, it’s sort of a minor thing if you are thinking “this will protect workers”.

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