It has been 5 years since the 2013 garment factory collapse in Bangladesh that killed 1,134 people and left over 2,500 injured. The Rana Plaza factory building was expanded illegally, with extra floors stacked one on top of another. An engineer had declared it unsafe, and the thousands of people who worked inside, stitching garments for clothing brands from around the world, knew it was trouble. The tragedy focused international attention on Bangladesh’s role as the world’s second-largest garment producer, and led the government and manufacturing associations to promise big improvements.
Many of the world’s top clothing brands said they would stop contracting with factories if they failed to improve safety for their workers. European and U.S. brands set up programs meant to improve safety. Five years later, the situation is complicated, and factories overseen by the government and subcontractors remain at risk. About 3,000 of the country’s 7,000 factories are still exposed to life-threatening risks, ranging from a lack of fire safety equipment to serious structural flaws, reports The New York Times (April 24, 2018). The dangerous factories, often small, sometimes subcontract work from larger factories that deal with foreign brands. Textile exports are a huge business for Bangladesh, bringing in $28 billion annually, mostly from Europe and the U.S.
Under new programs, some 2,300 factories have been inspected and many have upgraded their safety standards. Industry insiders guardedly admit that subcontracting remains a problem, since larger businesses sometimes contract some work out to smaller, less-safe factories. This issue of outsourcing (Chapter 2) remains controversial to Westerners, who want inexpensive clothing, but ethically produced.
Classroom discussion questions:
1. What is the responsibility of Western firms whose manufacturing takes place in countries like Vietnam, Ethiopia, or Bangladesh?
2. What was the agreement reached shortly after the collapse?
