Daily Lessons from Life 25 April 2013 - Bangladesh tragedy down to West's cost squeeze: NGOs

"Bangladesh tragedy down to West's cost squeeze: NGOs - Reuters Apr 25, 2013

LONDON - Major western clothing retailers squeezing Asian suppliers and a flawed approach to ensuring even basic working standards are fuelling conditions for tragedies like the latest factory collapse in Bangladesh, NGOs said on Thursday.

At least 187, mainly female workers, were killed and over 1,000 injured when the eight-storey Rana Plaza factory building in Savar, 30 kilometres (20 miles) outside the capital Dhaka, collapsed on Wednesday.

"What we're saying is that bargain-basement (clothing) is automatically leading towards these types of disasters," John Hilary, executive director at British charity War on Want, told Reuters.

He said western clothing retailers' desire to undercut rivals has translated into increasing pressure on foreign suppliers to reduce costs.

"If you've got that, then it's absolutely clear that you're not going to be able to have the right kind of building regulations, health and safety, fire safety. Those things will become more and more impossible as the cost price goes down."

Hilary said the push for lower costs inevitably led to factories cutting corners: "As a result of that, we see the sort of disaster that happened yesterday."

War on Want and its partner in Bangladesh, the National Garment Workers' Federation, called on major international buyers to be held to account.

"This negligence must stop. The deaths of these workers could have been avoided if multinational corporations, governments and factory owners took workers' protection seriously," NGWF president, Amirul Haque Amin, said in a statement.

Gareth Price-Jones, Bangladesh country director of British charity Oxfam, said western companies had not done enough.

"Western buyers could be doing much, much more, and they have a moral responsibility to do so," he told Reuters. "Western buyers really need to press for decent wages and safe working conditions."

He said Bangladeshi building regulations were not robust enough for construction in an earthquake zone and were, in any case, frequently ignored."

I empathized with the people who lost loved ones in this tragedy. No doubt. At the same time, I am not sure WHY the NGOs are blaming the Western buyers of 'cheap' clothing for this type of tragedy.

WHO are the EMPLOYERS of these workers? WHO are the BUILDERS of this PARTICULAR factory building?

UNLESS we have proof that they are ALL the same person or same group of business people, we can point the blame on the Western buyers. If NOT, I see the link as tedious at best.

Lessons for me are:

1. Bangladesh government and the authority in charge of safe building have to take responsibility for poor oversight. The builders for sure IF they had constructed an UNSAFE building! What about the factory owners and their maintenance crews if they have noticed the danger signs but paid no heed to it?;

2. the unionists. If they are really that pro-active and fearless, they would have fought the unsafe working conditions many times over and not compromised. They should be saying: 'Shame to fellow Bangladeshi business people for exploiting your fellow country folks and irresponsible with building safety.' Notes: there were other cases of factory workers 'burned to death' due to locked or blocked fire exits in the past! If life is really that precious, the unionists should not have taken any prisoners!!;

3. the Western buyers of 'cheap' clothing. Do they know about the conditions? Are they NOT required by their own high 'responsible purchasing standards' to ensure that there are no child labour, no slave labour, no unsafe working conditions (I am not sure any Western buyers or for that matter, any buyers, to CHECK that the building where the factory is housed in is safe or is earthquake proof. Surely the people who work in such a place cherish their lives more than their meager wages? NO?) Of course, if there were such exacting standards and they were NOT in compliance, the Western buyers and their employers have to be brought to task for sure.

Will this type of tragedy stop in Bangladesh? It WILL if the people are willing to have no work for a while. Simply providing cheap labour is never going to get the nation anywhere?