http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/South-Asia/Bangladesh-building-... Bangladesh building death toll approaches 700: Army
More than 400 are dead after a building full of garment workers collapsed in Bangladesh last week. A brave group of workers' rights organizers are going into the rubble to find out who is responsible -- but they need our help to finish the job.
Can you donate $25 to the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, so it can finish gathering evidence from this tragedy, and train workers in their rights to prevent this from happening again?
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/South-Asia/Bangladesh-building-death-toll-approaches-700-Army/articleshow/19926426.cms Bangladesh building death toll approaches 700: Army
Last Tuesday, a five-story crack opened up in a massive industrial building on the outskirts of Bangladesh’s capital. Building managers cleared the unsafe building, which housed factories making clothes for western companies like Benetton, Children’s Place, Joe Fresh, JC Penney, and Primark.
The next day, the employees who worked in a bank and retail stores on the lower floors were told to stay home again -- but managers of the six garment factories in the upper floors ordered their employees, most of who are young women, to come to work anyway. Workers protested, but the bosses threatened that anyone who refused to return to the shop floor would lose a month’s pay.
Less than an hour after garment workers sat down at their sewing machines to begin their 11-hour day, the building collapsed. Over 400 are confirmed dead, and countless more are still missing. It’s the deadliest disaster in the history of the garment industry.
As global brands like Walmart and Benetton rush to deny that they had anything to do with the tragedy at Rana Plaza, staff from the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity (or BCWS) are interviewing survivors and searching the ruins to reveal which corporations did business there, and helping make sure that the compensation that companies are committing will reach all the families that have lost loved ones. They did the same thing after a fire at the Tazreen factory killed 112 workers last November. It was their investigations that proved conclusively that Walmart was complicit in the tragedy, despite Walmart’s denial.
The BCWS represents some of the world’s poorest workers, and it relies on a shoestring budget to do its utterly essential work. Responding to one of the worst industrial disasters in history has stretched its meager resources to the breaking point, but it’s still pressing on because it knows that holding big clothing corporations accountable in the wake of a tragedy like this is key to preventing the next disaster.
Each time one of these tragedies happens -- whether it’s this building collapse or the Tazreen fire that killed 112 in November or one of the 30 or 40 other fires that happened in between -- global clothing companies scramble to claim they had nothing to do with what happened. And it’s easy for these brands to get away with denying their involvement, unless someone goes in to do the painstaking work of documenting what companies ultimately sourced from which factories.
That’s where BCWS comes in: Every time there is some kind of catastrophe, they mobilize their researchers to go into the rubble and find the labels that prove that Walmart, or H&M, or Gap, or any one of hundreds of companies bought clothes from that factory. Their work allows groups like SumOfUs.org to pressure those brands to compensate workers and support agreements like the legally binding Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement that we've been pressing companies to adopt.
And BCWS’ strategy works: In many cases, manufacturers and retailers pay compensation on the basis of BCWS’ investigations. After pressure by activists using documents found by BCWS, four companies that sourced from collapsed factories have already agreed to compensation for victims: Primark, Loblaw, Texman and El Corte Inglés. But many other companies sourced from Tazreen and Rana, and much more work is needed to uncover which brands sourced from which factories – and to use that evidence to force them to pay up.
BCWS doesn’t stop at going into the factories after disasters. Since the vast majority of factory workers are poor young women, and those women are cut out of civil society in Bangladesh, BCWS makes a special effort to train young women in their rights at work. They provide tools for organizing unions, and engage in advocacy for a higher minimum wage and safer working conditions in the factories themselves. Even corporations recognize their value. Levi Strauss & Co said that BCWS is “a globally respected labor rights organization, which has played a vital role in documenting and working to remedy labor violations in the apparel industry in Bangladesh.”
SumOfUs.org members are familiar with BCWS founder Kalpona Akter. Two thousand SumOfUs.org members funded her and a survivor of the Tazreen fire to tour the U.S., during which she challenged global companies to protect their workers. She and her colleagues have shown incredible bravery in the face of a wave of repression. During their campaign to raise the minimum wage, Bangladesh’s Prime Minister called labor activists “enemies of the nation.” Kalpona and other leaders of the BCWS were arrested and held on completely fabricated criminal charges of inciting riots and sabotage until an international outcry forced the government to release them. Last year, Aminul Islam, a BCWS organizer, was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered after being tracked, beaten, and threatened with death by security forces. But the violence hasn’t stopped the organization -- it has inspired organizers to redouble their efforts.
If we can give BCWS the resources they need to respond to this massive tragedy, then we’ll have a shot at finding out who knew what when, and who is responsible for paying compensation to the workers who survived, and the families of those who died. And we’ll remind Bangladeshi authorities that if they try to interfere with the BCWS, people around the world will be watching. That's why we've set a goal of raising $20,000 for BCWS -- a huge boost to its annual budget. If we raise more than that, we'll put it towards similar campaigns to protect workers' rights worldwide.
This is the worst industrial disaster in the history of the Bangladesh garment industry -- and it’s no accident. It is the natural symptom of a toxic global economic system built on multinational corporations paying people as little as possible to produce the goods they sell, so those products can be sold for maximum profits. The only winners in this system are the corporate executives and investors who see their bottomless Swiss bank accounts fill with ever-growing profits.
Thankfully, there’s one group we can trust to police these corporations and ensure that Bangladeshi garment workers are treated humanely: the workers themselves. By supporting the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, we’ll give those workers the resources they need to fight back and a build a more just global economy from the ground up.
Thanks for standing in solidarity with workers worldwide,
Kaytee, Rob, Taren and the rest of us
SumOfUs is a world-wide movement to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy. You can follow us on Twitter, and like us on Facebook. Click here to add yourself to SumOfUs.
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Pressure grows on international textile retailers and Bangladesh
In response to growing numbers of accidents in textile manufacture in Bangladesh the European Commission intends to call European firms with trade links to that country to an urgent meeting. The EU’s foreign relations commissioner, Catherine Ashton, and trade commissioner, Karel De Gucht, want to talk with the companies about higher safety standards in Bangladesh. No date has been set but the matter is being treated as urgent.
The British cheap textiles chain Primark and the Canadian supermarket chain Loblaw have announced they will pay compensation for victims and their families.
The Spanish clothes label Mango and the Italian Benetton company – which both also sell on the German market – also had goods produced in the collapsed building, but claim these were only demonstration products in only one order.
A German Christian church based “Campaign for Clean Clothes” reported that so far only the NKD company (KiK label) had confirmed that until recently it drew supplies from factories in the collapsed Rana Plaza building near Dhaka. "We are shocked – it appears that within just eight months KiK is involved for the third time in a very bad accident in a textile factory,” said a spokeswoman for the campaign. Many textiles labelled KiK were found in the Rana Plaza rubble, she said.
"We are surprised, disconcerted and shaken that along with other brands, KiK textiles were found in the rubble of the Rana Plaza building,” the Bönen based company stated.
It said KiK had no direct business links with any suppliers based in the building since 2008. "We’re intensively checking together with the relevant importer what explanation there is for the labels and textiles found.” KiK said they were also asking themselves how production could continue in a building officially condemned and ordered vacated. KiK said they would continue to investigate.
KiK was linked with the Tazreen clothes factory in Bangladesh where a fire last November killed at least 112 people, as well as a factory in Pakistan, in which more than 250 people were killed in September.
The Rana Plaza building in Savar, near Dhaka, housed several clothes factories employing a total of 3,100 people, mostly women. Bangladesh is one of the biggest textile producers in the world; clothes and other textiles account for about 80% of its exports, valued at more than 19 billion Australian dollars a year. The industry employs four million people in more than 5,000 large factories supplying half the globe.
Pressure is growing on international enterprises to ensure safe conditions for the workers. The EU Commission wants to take up the issue of safety and generally better working conditions with European firms trading with the Bangladeshi textile industry and other not named countries. A few days ago Ashton and De Gucht demanded of Bangladeshi authorities to take action and threatened trade sanctions.
The Greens member of the European parliament, Barbara Lochbihler, has not only blamed the textile chains but also argued that consumers share responsibility for the bad state of affairs. She shared the view of Pope Francis, who condemned working conditions in Bangladesh as slave labour.
Lochbihler emphasised that as one of the biggest textile exporters Bangladesh passed a good law in 2006, which stipulates that factories have to allow independent labour inspectors to come in. But the law is widely ignored or subverted by corruption, she says.
Lochbihler demanded that the EU Commission increase pressure on Bangladesh and to restrict trade unless international safety and health standards are implemented. So far, Bangladesh has been able to export certain goods to the EU duty-free and in limitless quantities.
"That can be limited,” Lochbihler said, adding that the EU is Bangladesh’s biggest trading partners and one of the most important donors.
Lochbihler appealed to European textile companies to buy only from suppliers who abide by safety standards. She urged certification of textile manufacturers. Consumers should choose fairly traded textile products.
The Campaign for Clean Clothes demanded compensation and binding fire and building protection. It wants all textile firms to immediately contact Bangladeshi trade unions to discuss the next moves and to support emergency relief.
"The enterprises must finally sign the binding building and fire protection agreement worked out two years ago by local and international trade unions and labour law organisations.” Among other things, the agreement provides for independent building inspections, training in worker rights, obligation for public transparency and revision of safety standards.