Apr 26, 2013
More than 300 workers now have been confirmed dead from Wednesday’s building collapse in Bangladesh. Some 2,200 survivors have been pulled from the ruins of what is being called one of the worst manufacturing disasters in history. More than 3,000 garment workers were on the job when upper building floors pancaked on top of each other.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has ordered the arrest of the building’s owner, Mohammed Sohel Rana, a local leader of ruling Awami League’s youth front, who told factory operators the building was safe. Hasina also has ordered the arrest of five garment factory owners.
Cracks in the multistory building, located in Savar, just outside the capital, Dhaka, were reported in the local media after they appeared on Tuesday. Although workers in the retail shops on the building’s first floor were told to stay home on Wednesday, operators of five garment factories in the building’s top floors ordered employees to report to work. According to the Bangladesh Daily Star, video shot before the collapse shows cracks in the walls, with some attempts at repair. The video also shows columns missing chunks of concrete.
Bangladesh’s BDB News24 reports workers say factory owners forced them to work on Wednesday, including Aklima, a garment worker. “I did not want to go to the factory since a crack appeared yesterday (Wednesday),” she said. “But the factory’s officers forced us into the building in the morning.” Bangladesh Information Minister Hasanul Haq told the press that the collapse “was not an accident, it was a killing incident.”
The Solidarity Center has called on the Bangladesh government to enforce its labor and building codes, on multinational companies that source from the country to prioritize health and safety conditions in factories, and on both to respect the rights of workers and to recognize that the only way Bangladesh will have safe factories is if workers have a voice on the job. Human Rights Watch noted to the Associated Press that “none of the factories in the Rana Plaza were unionized, and that had they been, workers would have been in a better position to refuse to enter the building Wednesday.”
Media reports describe Dhaka and Savar as chaotic, with thousands of garment workers protesting the collapse and demanding arrest and punishment of those responsible for the tragedy, and families of missing workers pressing to get access to the ruins to find their loved ones.
The building collapse took place five months after a fire killed 112 garment workers at the Tazreen Fashions factory. Since then, there have been at lest 41 fire incidents at Bangladesh garment factories that have killed nine workers and injured more than 660 others, according to data compiled by the Solidarity Center.
Bangladesh’s apparel industry is the country’s largest source of export revenue—78 percent of the country’s $23 billion in export revenue in 2011. Yet garment workers are paid $37 a month, the lowest in the world, as factories seek to minimize costs to meet the price demands of the global apparel brands. Workers often are prevented from forming unions and these vulnerable and impoverished workers cannot fight alone for their rights.
A New York Times editorial today concisely summed up the solution to Bangladesh’s ongoing workplace tragedies, writing that the government must “enact meaningful changes for the country’s 3.5 million garment workers, many of whom are women.” The most essential change is to “enforce Bangladeshi labor laws and safety standards, which theoretically provide protection but are rarely honored. The laws allow workers to form unions and bargain with management on wages and working conditions, but the government has not defended those rights despite promises to do so to international agencies and the United States.”
Apr 26, 2013
“The factory caught fire about 6 p.m. After the fire, they did not allow us to go out,” says Nazma. “They locked the gate. The workers were screaming together.”
Tazreen Factory Fire Survivors Describe Death Trap from Solidarity Center on Vimeo.
Nazma is among the Tazreen Factory fire survivors in this video who describe the horrific workplace conditions that killed 112 garment workers in November. The unsafe and deadly working conditions at Tazreen are similar to those many Bangladesh garment workers face every day.
But for many, living through the fire is just the beginning of their ordeal. The meager compensation Tazreen fire survivors have received from the government and the global apparel brands is not enough to replace the wages many no longer can earn because they are too injured to work.
For Nazma and the other mostly female survivors who sustained extensive physical wounds, the inability to support their families and the cultural stigma attached to their injuries means, in Nazma’s words, “death was better than living this kind of life.”
Solidarity Center staff in Dhaka, Bangladesh, compiled this video.
Apr 25, 2013
Workers Memorial Day, internationally observed each April 28, is more timely than ever this year. The rising death toll from yesterday’s building collapse in Bangladesh and the recent workplace deaths at the fertilizer factory in West, Texas, serve as tragic reminders of how much more needs to be done to ensure the safety and health of workers around the world. As part of Workers Memorial Day events, the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Md., is hosting a symposium: “From Mourning to Mass Movements: Garment Workers, Fire Safety and the International Fight for Social Justice.”
Sumi Abedin, a 19-year-old Bangladesh garment worker, was among the survivors of another horrific workplace tragedy, the disastrous Tazreen Fashions Ltd. factory fire that killed 112 workers in November (injured survivors describe their efforts at survival in a video here). Sumi recently traveled to the United States on a trip to meet with congressional lawmakers and describe the unsafe and deadly working conditions at Tazreen—conditions similar to those many Bangladesh garment workers face every day. Solidarity Center staff compiled this report from her discussions in Washington, D.C.
On Nov. 24, 2012, Sumi finished lunch and, as she did every other work day, returned to stitching clothes on the fourth floor of the Tazreen garment factory. Hours later, she heard co-workers talking about a fire on the first floor. Her managers told them to get back to work—they said there was no fire. After a while, smoke began rising through the stairwells, and workers panicked. Along with her colleagues, Sumi ran for the stairs, but the two women’s stairwells were locked. The third, reserved for men and official visitors, was overwhelmed with workers who had fallen while trying to escape the burning building.
The electricity had gone out, and the stairwell was clogged with thick smoke. Unable to reach the first floor, Sumi made her way to the third floor, following co-workers who used their cell phones as flashlights. As some workers fought to open the barred windows, one of the mechanics managed to pry open the exhaust fan. Sumi faced a choice—risk death by remaining in the building or by jumping. She wanted her parents to be able to identify her body, so she chose to jump from the third floor.
Sumi passed out after the fall, but when she regained consciousness, she saw that her male colleague who had jumped with her lay dead next to her side. When she tried to stand, she realized that her right leg was broken, as was her left hand. She called to another worker to help her get home, where she found her grieving parents mourning her death.
Sumi’s parents rushed to a neighbor’s house to borrow money so she could go to the hospital. After receiving treatment for smoke inhalation, Sumi was sent to another hospital that was better equipped to treat her broken bones.
As compensation, Li & Fung, a multinational supply-chain management company, paid Sumi and some of the other survivors $1,200 through the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers & Exporters Association (BGMEA). She was required to sign documentation she did not understand to receive the payment. The majority of the money has been spent on her medical bills, and she is still unable to work. The ready-made garment sector is her best hope for employment, but her injuries prevent her from holding a stitching job. Sumi also has nightmares about the fire and says she is too afraid to go back to a factory. Other workers sustained injuries even more debilitating than Sumi’s, but they, too, received only $1,200 and back-pay.
Sumi says responsibility for compensating survivors and families of those deceased should be shared among the factory owners, BGMEA, the Bangladesh government and the corporate brands that sourced from the factory. Sumi, who started working in garment factories at age 13, recounts that while she was at Tazreen, factory auditors representing a variety of buyers visited the factory regularly, often several times a month. Yet managers always knew about the audits in advance, and before each visit, they coached workers on how to answer questions. Managers also provided temporary safety equipment and “fire committee” T-shirts to workers, even though a real fire committee did not exist.
Managers told workers to lie about factory conditions, such as access to clean drinking water and timely payment of wages. Managers also doubled as translators for workers who were interviewed. As soon as auditors left, managers removed safety equipment, locked stairwells and returned fabric stockpiles to their “storage” spaces—which often were building exits. For survivors of the Tazreen fire who have received compensation, the funds fail to provide the long-term health care that many require. Meanwhile, 41 other factories in Bangladesh have had fires or fire-related incidents since the Tazreen tragedy, according to statistics compiled by the Solidarity Center in Bangladesh, illustrating the continuing disregard for human rights and human lives in Bangladesh’s garment industry.
Apr 24, 2013
Another four garment factories in Bangladesh became death traps today, and the Solidarity Center is mourning the senseless loss of life and the grievous injuries that have befallen hundreds of workers who were simply trying to make a living. The organization is calling on the Bangladesh government to enforce its labor and building codes, on brands that source from the country to prioritize health and safety conditions in factories, and on both to respect the rights of workers and to recognize that the only way Bangladesh will have safe factories is if workers have a voice on the job.
At least 80 workers lost their lives and more than 600 people were injured when the eight-story building collapsed, according to the Bangladesh government. Hundreds remain trapped.
“The status quo cannot be that workers have to face death just to try to feed their families,” said Alonzo Suson, Solidarity Center country director in Bangladesh. “How many more workers have to die before the government, the manufacturers and the companies that source from Bangladesh start to obey the law and respect international labor standards?”
According to local news reports, the building had developed cracks that threatened the structure’s integrity on Tuesday. Workers report being forced into the building to work on Wednesday.
For more than two decades, the Solidarity Center has been supporting workers trying to gain their rights in Bangladesh, where the minimum wage for garment workers is less than the World Bank’s international poverty line of $1.25 a day.
A major fire killed at least 112 Bangladeshi garment workers in late November, almost five months to the day of this latest disaster. Since then, there have been more than 41 fire
incidents at Bangladesh garment factories that have killed nine workers and injured more than 660 others, according to data compiled by Solidarity staff.
This Sunday, April 28, workers around the world will mark Workers Memorial Day, which provides a focal point to remember those killed and injured on the job, highlights the preventable nature of most workplace accidents and reiterates calls for workplace safety.
Apr 4, 2013
The Solidarity Center and the international worker rights movement are commemorating Bangladesh union leader Aminul Islam, who was brutally murdered one year ago today. His murderer or murderers remain at large.
Aminul, 39, was a plant-level union leader at an export processing zone in Bangladesh, an organizer for the Bangladesh Center for Workers’ Solidarity (BCWS), and president of the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation’s (BGIWF) local committee in the Savar and Ashulia areas of Dhaka. He and his wife had three children.
In November, investigation of his murder was transferred to the Bangladesh Criminal Investigation Department, a move demanded by the Committee for Justice for Aminul Islam, of which the Solidarity Center is a founding member. To date, no arrests have been made.
“Aminul gave his life trying to achieve justice for millions of Bangladesh workers,” says Solidarity Center Asia Director Tim Ryan. “Yet the Bangladesh government has not expressed urgency in bringing justice to Aminul and his suffering family by identifying, locating and prosecuting those who murdered him.”
Aminul’s murder received worldwide condemnation, including from the global union movement, major apparel industry associations, U.S. Ambassador to Bangladesh Dan Mozena and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In recent months, the Bangladesh government issued a reward for information leading to the arrest of a suspect in the case.
Aminul, who was on his way to a mosque after work April 4, was later found dead by the side of a road more than 60 miles from his home, his body tortured and beaten. Since his murder, more than 100 Bangladeshi garment workers have been killed on the job, including 112 workers at a horrific fire in the Tazreen Fashions factory in November. Aminul sought to change the conditions that have led to the dozens of fires that broke out at Bangladesh factories in the last year alone. He believed that the locked factory doors and lack of fire safety measures—which have led to unacceptable death tolls—could most effectively be addressed by workers who freely form unions and collectively bargain to improve workplace safety and health conditions.
Bangladesh is the world’s second-largest clothes exporter with overseas garment sales topping $19 billion in 2011, or 80 percent of total national exports. Yet garment workers in Bangladesh essentially risk their lives each day on the job for the equivalent of $37 a month—the World Bank’s definition of extreme poverty.
The Bangladesh government recently has submitted a new safety plan for garment factories, though it has yet to be implemented or tested. Currently only a small percentage of the country’s thousands of garment factories see inspectors or face consequences when they do not meet safety or building codes. “We support any effort to ensure that workplaces are not death traps,” said Ryan. “However, promises are not progress. And when workers are not included in the process, such measures tend to fail.
