The deaths of about 400 workers in two recent fires at Asian garment factories that made clothes for American and European brands should outrage consumers and become a rallying cry for higher safety standards. Just as the 1911 fire at the Triangle shirtwaist factory in New York ushered in a sweeping overhaul of industrial regulations in this country, these tragedies should lead to comprehensive changes in developing countries that have become the biggest suppliers of clothes to the Western world.
Accounts of the fires, in Bangladesh and Pakistan, clearly show that there would have been few, if any, deaths had the factories met basic safety standards. Owners of both factories had barred windows to prevent theft, and neither building had usable or safe fire exits, making it impossible for the workers to escape the flames and smoke. At the Bangladesh factory, Tazreen Fashions, managers initially stopped workers from leaving by dismissing a fire warning as a false alarm.
These fires were the latest in a series of garment factory calamities. The Clean Clothes Campaign, an anti-sweatshop group, estimates that more than 500 workers have died in factory fires in Bangladesh since 2006, not counting the most recent disaster. That country has more than three million workers employed in the clothing industry and is now the world’s second-largest exporter of garments, after China.
The loss of life is all the more horrifying because most safety violations are obvious — as is the need to correct them. Global brands and retailers like Gap and Walmart could pay for improvements to factories in countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh. While the governments of these countries must do more to enforce higher safety standards, real change will come only if buyers of clothing put their economic muscle behind the effort.
News reports about an April 2011 meeting on factory safety in Bangladesh appear to indicate that Walmart and other retailers have been unwilling to pay the higher prices for clothes that would be needed to make factories safer. Labor groups say a roughly 3 percent annual increase in prices paid to the factories would be sufficient to make the needed improvements. That is a small expense to safeguard the lives of millions.
Most clothing brands and retailers also seem unwilling to commit to changes that could improve safety for workers who earn as little as $37 a month in places like Bangladesh. Companies continue to advocate the use of voluntary auditing and inspection regimes that are not up to the challenge.
In the case of Tazreen Fashions, Walmart says it stopped ordering clothes from the factory after its auditors found safety violations. Nevertheless, orders from Walmart channeled through subcontractors found their way to the factory. If companies insist on using such daisy-chain outsourcing, they must make sure every link in the chain is governed by the same rules, and they cannot be willfully ignorant of how their contractors operate.
Gap announced in October that it would start a fire-safety campaign for its suppliers in Bangladesh and help them get loans totaling $20 million to make factory improvements and provide $2 million in grants to pay workers while their workshops closed for renovations. Other companies, like H&M, also have fire-safety programs. But these initiatives are not subject to outside scrutiny and verification.
What’s needed is an independent and robust inspection system that is legally enforceable and run by safety professionals. A group of international and Bangladeshi labor organizations have been working on such an effort, but they have been able to get only two companies — the PVH Corporation, which owns the Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein brands, and the German retailer Tchibo — to agree to it. The proposal would provide for an independent chief inspector who would oversee detailed and periodic inspections, based on internationally recognized fire-safety standards, of factories that make a majority of the clothes bought by the companies that sign the agreement.
The companies would bear the costs of improvements through higher prices for clothes and grants to workers who miss workdays because of renovations. The cost of the inspection program to each company would vary by the firm’s size, but it would be capped at $500,000 a year. Most important, the contract would be legally binding and could be enforced through arbitration and the courts in the companies’ home countries.
The labor groups and the two companies have agreed that their system will go into effect only when two more major clothing businesses sign on so that more factories could be covered. More brands should step up and embrace this effort.
While this approach advanced by the labor groups is not perfect — for example, it applies only to Bangladesh and ends after two years — it provides a solid foundation for meaningful improvements. If successful, it could become a template for international businesses operating in other developing countries, like Pakistan, India, Vietnam and Cambodia. This could be one step toward ensuring that goods headed for American markets are not made in conditions that could well cost workers their lives.
Source: NYTimes
