2013 Savar building collapse

The 2013 Savar building collapse or Rana Plaza collapse was a structural failure that occurred on Wednesday, 24
April 2013 in the Savar Upazila of Dhaka, Bangladesh, where an eight-story commercial building named Rana Plaza
collapsed. The search for the dead ended on 13 May 2013 with a death toll of 1,129.[2] Approximately 2,500 injured
people were rescued from the building alive.[4] It is considered the deadliest garment-factory accident in history, as
well as the deadliest accidental structural failure in modern human history.[5][6]

The building contained clothing factories, a bank, apartments, and several shops. The shops and the bank on the
lower floors immediately closed after cracks were discovered in the building.[7][8][9] The building's owners ignored
warnings to avoid using the building after cracks had appeared the day before. Garment workers were ordered to
return the following day, and the building collapsed during the morning rush-hour

Background[edit]

The location of Savar (red marker), the site of the building collapse, in relation to Dhaka

Photo of Rana Plaza taken one year before the collapse.

The building, Rana Plaza, was owned by Sohel Rana, allegedly a leading member of the local Jubo League, the
youth wing of the ruling Awami League political party.[8][11] It housed a number of separate garment factories employing
around 5,000 people, several shops, and a bank.[12] The factories manufactured apparel for brands
including Benetton,[13] Bonmarch,[14] the Children's Place,[10] El Corte Ingls,[15] Joe Fresh,[13] Monsoon Accessorize,
[16]
Mango,[17] Matalan,[17][18] Primark,[19] and Walmart.[20][21]

The head of the Bangladesh Fire Service & Civil Defense, Ali Ahmed Khan, said that the upper four floors had been
built without a permit.[22] Rana Plaza's architect, Massood Reza, said the building was planned for shops and offices
but not factories. Other architects stressed the risks involved in placing factories inside a building designed only for
shops and offices, noting the structure was potentially not strong enough to bear the weight and vibration of heavy
machinery.[23]

On 23 April 2013, a TV channel recorded footage that showed cracks in the Rana Plaza building. Immediately
afterward, the building was evacuated,[24] and the shops and the bank on the lower floors were closed.[12][22][25] Later in
the day, Sohel Rana said to the media that the building was safe and workers should return tomorrow.[24] Managers at
Ether Tex threatened to withhold a month's pay from workers who refused to come to work.[26]

Collapse and rescue[edit]

Side view of the collapsed building

Video clip of rescue work at the collapsed building

On the morning of 24 April, there was a power outage, and diesel generators on the top floor were started.[27] The
building collapsed at about 08:57 a.m. BST,[27] leaving only the ground floor intact.[7] The Bangladesh Garment
Manufacturers and Exporters Association president confirmed that 3,122 workers were in the building at the time of
the collapse.[28] One local resident described the scene as if "an earthquake had struck."[29]

Very early on in the rescue effort, the United Nations offered to send their expert search and rescue unit, known as
the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG), to the site, but this offer was rejected by Dhaka
authorities. The Bangladesh government made a statement suggesting that the area's local rescue emergency
services were well equipped. Prior to offering assistance to Bangladesh, the UN held consultations to assess the
country's ability to mount an effective rescue operation, and they reached the conclusion that they lacked that
capability. Bangladeshi officials, fearing damage to national pride, refused to accept the assistance offered to them by
the UN. A large portion of the rescue operation consisted of inadequately equipped volunteers, many of whom had no
protective clothing and wore sandals. Some buried workers drank their own urine to survive the high temperatures,
waiting to be saved. Not only was the Bangladeshi government accused of favouring national pride over those buried
alive, but many relatives of those trapped in the debris criticised the government for trying to end the rescue mission
prematurely.[10]

One of the garment manufacturers' websites indicates that more than half of the victims were women, along with a
number of their children who were in nursery facilities within the building.[10] Bangladeshi Home Minister Muhiuddin
Khan Alamgir confirmed that fire service personnel, police, and military troops were assisting with the rescue effort.
[9]
Volunteer rescue workers used bolts of fabric to assist survivors to escape from the building.[30]A national day of
mourning was held on 25 April.[9]

On 8 May an army spokesman, Mir Rabbi, said the army's attempt to recover more bodies from the rubble would
continue for at least another week.[31] On 10 May, 17 days after the collapse, a woman named Reshma was found and
rescued alive and almost unhurt under the rubble.[32][33][34][35][36]

Causes[edit]

The direct reasons for the building problems were:

1. Building built first without authorization on a pond,

2. Conversion from commercial use to industrial use,

3. Addition of 4 floors above the original permit

4. The use of substandard construction material (which led to an overload of the building structure aggravated
by vibrations due to the generators). Those various elements indicated dubious business practices by Sohel
Rana and dubious administrative practices in Savar.[24][37][38]

One good example to illustrate this context is the evacuation of the building after the cracks. It is reported that the
Industrial police first requested the evacuation of the building until an inspection had been conducted.[39][40] It is
reported that Abdur Razak Khan, an engineer, declared the building unsafe and requested public authorities to
conduct a more thorough inspection; he was arrested for helping the owner illegally add three floors.[38][41] It is also
reported that Kabir Hossain Sardar, the upazila nirbahi officer visited the site, met with Sohel Rana, and declared the
building safe.[37] Sohel Rana said to the media that the building was safe and workers should return to work the next
day.[42][full citation needed] One manager of the factories in the Rana Plaza reported that Sohel Rana told them that the building
was safe.[43] Managers requested then workers to go back to work, so that on the next day workers entered the
factories again.
Causes related to manufacturers and safety compliance[edit]

Several have argued that the decision by managers to send workers back into the factories was due to the pressure
to complete orders for buyers on time. This second line of argument gives partial responsibility for the disaster to the
short production deadlines preferred by buyers due to the quick changes of designs, referred to as fast fashion. Some
have argued the demand for fast fashion and low-cost clothing motivated minimal oversight by clothing brands, and
that collectively organised trade unions could have responded to the pressure of management.[44][45][46][47] Others have
argued that trade unions would increase workforce costs and thus endanger the Bangladesh garment industry.[48]

Since the Spectrum factory collapse in 2005, prominent manufacturers organised projects like the Ethical Trading
Initiative and Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) with the purpose of preventing such disasters.[49] These
programs ultimately failed to prevent the Savar building collapse. Despite social compliance audits conducted
according to BSCI procedure at two of the factories at Rana Plaza, auditors failed to detect the structural concerns. In
a press release following the collapse, BSCI explained that their system did not cover building safety.[50] This has been
contested, as the BSCI audit questionnaire required auditors to check building permits, and discrepancies between
the permit and the number of floors in practice were evident.[51]Some have argued that the BSCI face weak incentives
to report such violations.[52]

More conclusions about causes will be available when the investigation is over and the courts give their decisions.[53]

Aftermath[edit]
Bangladesh[edit]

Rescuers carrying out one of the survivors from the collapsed building

The day after the Rana Plaza building collapse, the Dhaka city development authority filed a case against the owners
of the building and the five garment factories operating inside it.[28] [54] On the same day, dozens of survivors were
discovered in the remains of the building.[55] Although at first Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had denied the
membership of Rana in the Jubo League, after intense criticism of her speech she ordered the arrest of Sohel
Rana and four of the owners of the garment factories operating in the building.[56][57] Sohel Rana was reported to have
gone into hiding;[56]however, authorities reported that four other individuals had already been arrested in connection
with the collapse.[58]

Two days after the building collapse, garment workers across the industrial areas of
Dhaka, Chittagong and Gazipur rioted, targeting vehicles, commercial buildings and garment factories.[59] The next
day, leftist political parties and the BNP-led 18 Party Alliance demanded the arrest and trial of suspects and an
independent commission to identify vulnerable factories.[60] Four days after the building collapsed, the owner of the
Rana Plaza, Sohel Rana, was arrested at Benapole, on the Indo-Bangladeshi border, in Jessore District by security
forces.[61][62][63][64] On the same day a fire broke out at the disaster site and authorities were forced to temporarily suspend
the search for survivors.[65]

On 1 May on International Workers' Day, protesting workers paraded through central Dhaka by the thousands to
demand safer working conditions and the death penalty for the owner of Rana Plaza.[66] A week later hundreds of
survivors of Bangladesh's worst industrial disaster blocked a main highway to demand wages as the death toll from
the collapse of the nine-story building passed 700.[67][68] Local government officials said they had been in talks with the
Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association to pay the workers their outstanding April salaries
plus a further three months 97. After officials promised the surviving workers that they would be soon paid, they
ended their protest. The government and garment association were compiling a list of surviving employees to
establish who must be paid and compensated.[69] The next day, 18 garment plants, including 16 in Dhaka and two in
Chittagong, were closed down. Textile minister, Abdul Latif Siddique, told reporters that more plants would be shut as
part of strict new measures to ensure safety.[70]

On 5 June, police in Bangladesh fired into the air in an attempt to disperse hundreds of former workers and relatives
of the victims of the collapse who were protesting to demand back pay and compensation promised by the
government and the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association.[71]

On 10 June, seven inspectors were suspended and accused of negligence for renewing the licenses of garment
factories in the building that collapsed.[72]

On 30 August 100 days after the collapse of Rana Plaza, injured workers and family members of those who died
there along with workers rights activists inaugurated a memorial for the tragedy, a crude statue of two fists thrusting
towards the sky grasping a hammer and sickle. The police attempted to stop the erection of the memorial several
times. It remains the only memorial monument for the tragedy.[46][73][74]

On 22 September, at least 50 people were injured when police fired rubber bullets and tear gas into a crowd of
protesters who were blocking streets in Dhaka demanding a minimum wage of $100 (8,114 takas) a month.[75] In
November, a 10-story garment factory in Gazipur, which supplied Western brands, was allegedly burned down by
workers angered over rumours of a colleague's death in police firing.[76]

In March 2014 Rana Plaza owner Sohel Rana was granted six months' bail in the High Court. This prompted angry
reactions from labour leaders. However, Rana will not be released from jail as another case filed by police is pending.
[77]

A December 2015 report, written by the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, found that only eight of
3,425 factories inspected had "remedied violations enough to pass a final inspection" despite the international
community's $280 million commitment to clean up Bangladesh's RMG industry.[78]

Worldwide criticism[edit]
Politicians[edit]

Board with photos of missing people posted by relatives

Nick Clegg, then UK Deputy PM and leader of the Liberal Democrats said: "... there's more we could do to talk about
what goes on behind the scenes and this terrible catastrophe might well prompt people to think again."[79]

Michael Connarty, UK's Falkirk East MP, is calling on the UK Government to push through new legislation to
end modern day slavery by forcing major High Street companies in the UK to audit their supply chain. The framework
requests that those companies make vigorous checks to ensure slave labour is not used in third world countries and
the UK to produce their goods.[80]

Karel De Gucht, current European Commissioner for Trade, warned that retailers and the Bangladeshi government
could face action from the EU if nothing is done to improve the conditions of workers adding that shoppers should
also consider where they are spending their money.[81]

On 1 May, Pope Francis spoke out against the working conditions in the factory:

A headline that really struck me on the day of the tragedy in Bangladesh was 'Living on 38 euros a month'. That is
what the people who died were being paid. This is called slave labour. Today in the world this slavery is being
committed against something beautiful that God has given us the capacity to create, to work, to have dignity. How
many brothers and sisters find themselves in this situation! Not paying fairly, not giving a job because you are only
looking at balance sheets, only looking at how to make a profit. That goes against God! [82][83]

Advocacy groups[edit]

Human Rights Watch stated their concern over the number of factory-building tragedies in Bangladesh; there have
been numerous major accidents in the country in the past decade, including the 2012 Dhaka fire.[84]

IndustriALL Global Union, a global union federation representing textile and garment workers' trade unions around
the world, launched an online campaign in support of the Bangladeshi unions' demand for labour law reform in the
wake of the disaster. The campaign, hosted on LabourStart, calls for changes in the law to make it easier for unions
to organise workers, as well as demanding improved health and safety conditions.[85]

On 27 April, protesters surrounded Primark store on Oxford Street in the City of Westminster in the West End of
London. Speaking outside the store, Murray Worthy, from campaign group War on Want, said:

We're here to send a clear message to Primark that the 300 deaths in the Bangladesh building collapse were not an
accident they were entirely preventable deaths. If Primark had taken its responsibility to those workers seriously, no
one need have died this week.[86]

There have been monthly protests at Benetton's flagship store at Oxford Circus in London since the one year
anniversary of the collapse. Benetton initially denied reports linking production of their clothing at the factory, but
clothes and documents linked to Benetton were discovered at the disaster site.[87] The protesters are demanding that
Benetton contribute to the compensation fund, which they have not yet done.[88]

The Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights established a workers' relief fund, which raised $26,000 for injured
workers and surviving family members by September 2013.[89]

Academia[edit]
A team of researchers from NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights began their investigation which
resulted in an April 2014 entitled "Business as Usual Is Not an Option: Supply Chains & Sourcing after Rana Plaza." [90]

Consumers[edit]
Dozens of consumers in the United States spoke out against unsafe working conditions found in the factory building.
People also unleashed their anger at retailers that did not have any connections to that specific building, but are
known to source from factories located in Bangladesh.[91]

Fashion industry response[edit]

At a meeting of retailers and NGOs a week after the collapse, a new Accord on Factory and Building Safety in
Bangladesh was created and a deadline of 16 May was set to sign it.[15] The agreement expands on a previous accord
signed only by the US-based PVH, which owns Calvin Klein, and German retailer Tchibo.

Walmart, along with 14 other North American companies, refused to sign the accord as the deadline passed.[92] As of
23 May 2013, thirty-eight companies had signed the accord.[93]Walmart, J.C. Penney and labour activists have been
considering an agreement to improve factory safety in Bangladesh for at least two years.[31] In 2011, Walmart rejected
reforms that would have had retailers pay more for apparel to help Bangladesh factories improve safety standards.[21]
[94]

On 10 July 2013, a group of 17 major North American retailers, including Walmart, Gap, Target and Macy's,
announced a plan to improve factory safety in Bangladesh, drawing immediate criticism from labour groups who
complained that it was less stringent than an accord reached among European companies. Unlike the accord joined
mainly by European retailers, the plan lacks legally binding commitments to pay for those improvements.[95]

Dov Charney, the founder and former CEO of American Apparel, was interviewed on Vice.tv and spoke out against
the poor treatment of workers in developing countries and refers to it as "slave labor". Charney proposes a "Global
Garment Workers Minimum Wage" as well discusses in detail many of the inner workings of the modern fast
fashion industry commerce practices that leads to dangerous factory conditions like at Savar.[96]

Compensation to victims[edit]

As of mid-September 2013, compensations to families of disaster victims were still under discussion, with many
families struggling to survive after having lost a major wage earner.[97]Families who had received the $200
compensation from Primark were only those able to provide DNA evidence of their relative's death in the collapse,
which proved extremely difficult.[98]The US government provided DNA kits to the families of victims.[98]

Of the 29 brands identified as having sourced products from the Rana Plaza factories, only 9 attended meetings held
in November 2013 to agree a proposal on compensation to the victims. Several companies refused to sign including
Walmart, Carrefour, Mango, Auchan and Kik. The agreement was signed by Primark, Loblaw, Bonmarche and El
Corte Ingles.[99] By March 2014, seven of the 28 international brands sourcing products from Rana Plaza had
contributed to the Rana Plaza Donors Trust Fund compensation fund, which is backed by the International Labour
Organization.[100]

More than 2 dozen victims' families have not been compensated as they could not back up their claims with
documentation.[101]

Charges[edit]

On 1 June 2015, murder charges were filed by Bangladeshi police against 42 different people, including the owners
of the building, over the collapse.[102][103]

International reaction[edit]

The Savar building collapse has led to widespread discussions about corporate social responsibility across
global supply chains. Based on an analysis of the Savar incident, Wieland and Handfield (2013) suggest that
companies need to audit products and suppliers and that supplier auditing needs to go beyond direct relationships
with first-tier suppliers. They also demonstrate that visibility must be improved if supply cannot be directly controlled,
and that smart and electronic technologies play a key role to improve visibility. Finally, they highlight that collaboration
with local partners, across the industry and with universities is crucial to successfully managing social responsibility in
supply chains.[104]

Bangladesh Garment Sramik Sanghati, an organisation working for the welfare of the workers, has called on the
government, international buyers and factory owners to compensate survivors and victims' families. The group has
also asked that April 24 be declared Labor Safety Day in the country.
Global labour and rights groups have criticised Western retailers and say they are not doing enough to ensure the
safety at factories where their clothes are made. The companies linked to the Rana Plaza disaster include the
Spanish brand Mango, Italian brand Benetton and French retailer Auchan.[105]

In April 2014, international news coverage reported that thousands of people gathered at an event held to
commemorate the first anniversary of the disaster.[105]

a history of cities in 50 buildings, day 22

Two years ago this overcrowded, poorly built complex became a symbol of global inequality
when 1,134 people died to feed the worlds appetite for cheap clothing

The small concrete room at the end of the narrow walkway behind the Ansar
Ali supermarket is in darkness thanks to another power cut. Faded trade
union posters line the walls of this, the Bangladesh National Garment Workers
Federations (NGWF) office. Sat on a plastic chair in the middle of the room,
light filtering in through the open door, Shahorbanu relives the story of losing
a son to the Rana Plaza.

Siddique was a 24-year-old garment worker, a tall man affectionate with his
mother and his little son, Parvez. When, on 24 April 2013, the eight-storey
factory complex collapsed, Siddique became trapped under thousands of
tonnes of rubble. He managed to take his mobile phone out of his pocket and
call his mother. Shahorbanu describes his terrified voice pleading: Ma, please
save me. Somehow, just please save me.

As Shahorbanu tells her story, Rafiqul Islam, vice-president of the federation

for the Greater Dhaka city suburb of Savar, walks through the door. Tall with
curly black hair, the sight of him brings Shahorbanu to tears. My son was just
like him. I miss when he would come back home and call me Ma Umma. It
is a great suffering to bury the body of a son.

It was Siddiques 19-year-old brother Bijan who eventually found his body,
five days after the collapse. Working as a rescuer digging bodies out of the
rubble left Bijan traumatised. Shahorbanu describes him as unable to tolerate
any loud sounds even loud talking.

In the 90 seconds it took to collapse, the Rana Plaza garment complex became
a symbol of global inequality. Considered the deadliest unintended structural
failure of modern times, global trade unions called it mass industrial
homicide. The Rana Plaza Coordination Committee, set up in response to the
disaster, puts the final death toll at 1,134 people.

The wreckage, cleared away by day labourers with baskets of rubble on their
heads, also signified a city out of control where illegally constructed
buildings buckle under the weight of people and machinery because regulation
has been trumped by competition and profit.

Two years on, the only visible memorial to the devastation is two giant granite
fists clutching a hammer and sickle, erected by the Workers Party of
Bangladesh. Neighbourhood talk is that a new factory will soon be built on the
site, as global demand for cheap clothing continues to grow.

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Shahorbanu, whose son Siddique was killed in the Rana Plaza collapse. Photograph: Rainbow
Collective
Bangladesh is the worlds second-largest garment producer, churning out
billions of pieces of clothing each year. International brands are typically
attracted by cities where costs of production including wages, employment
benefits, and health and safety are as low as possible. Prior to Rana Plaza
there had already been a string of disasters in Bangladeshs garment industry,
culminating in the Tazreen factory fire that killed 112 people six months
earlier. Yet business continued as usual.

On the morning of the collapse, garment workers and managers argued on the
forecourt outside Rana Plaza. Large cracks had appeared in the building the
day before, and the workers did not want to go inside. Another devastated
mother, Argina, says her 18-year-old daughter, Rubina, was told if she didnt
show up for work that day then she would not be paid for the month. She had
only been working there for four months before she died.

Rana Plaza is a story of city life for millions of impoverished women in the
modern world. Bangladeshs garment industry is 85-90% staffed by women;
they are the machine operators, the garment quality inspectors, the ones who
press shirts and snip loose threads six days a week for 12 hours a day.

Women also make up the majority of the 5,000 people disabled survivors
and families of victims who are still owed compensation by the brands that
used Rana Plaza. Moushumee worked on the seventh floor in a factory called
New Wave Style; she survived the collapse but remains traumatised, tortured
by nightmares and unable to set foot in another garment factory.

A strong trade union might have been able to evacuate Rana Plaza, but
Bangladeshs labour laws are skewed in favour of factory owners. Violence
against union organisers is frequent. In the NGWF Savar office, Rafiqul Islam
rolls up his trousers to reveal shins covered in scars from being beaten with
sticks by factory management thugs. He claims that if a factory wants to
terminate a workers contract, they place a gun or a knife in full view of the
resignation forms they want signed.

Brad Loewen, a former chief building official for the city of Winnipeg, works
on the 12th floor of a Dhaka tower block. His office is new and sparse; there is
a desk, a map of Bangladesh and a suit jacket on a hanger. Loewen is the chief
inspector for the Bangladesh Accord on Building and Fire Safety, a legally
binding agreement between brands and trade unions established after Rana
Plaza to replace the voluntary arrangements that went before.

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Monument to the 1,134 people killed in the collapse. Photograph: Tansy Hoskins

The view from Loewens office gives a sense of the sheer size of Dhaka; the city
is a seemingly infinite web of pale buildings surrounded by a haze of smog.
Roughly 4,000 of these buildings are garment factories, of which 1,500 are
covered by the accord. Opposite is Hossain Market, a garment factory where
1,200 workers from the Tuba Group went on hunger strike in 2014.

During a catastrophic failure its columns that fail, Loewen explains. A

building such as the Rana Plaza complex should have been built to withstand
twice its anticipated load, but in Dhaka, with its lack of construction
watchdogs, buildings commonly get under-built.

No ones watching them, Loewen says of Dhakas contractors. Theres no

government regulator, theres no overall project management Theyre just
building whatever they want.
Rana Plaza had numerous illegal floors built on a hopelessly weak structure.
Its construction materials were of extremely poor quality, and giant vibrating
generators had been placed on several floors to keep the power on and the
sewing machines running during the citys regular power cuts. More and more
people, machines and fabric bales were crammed inside until the load-bearing
columns cracked apart.

In the two years since the Rana Plaza tragedy, Loewens team of 70
Bangladeshi engineers has evacuated or closed 17 unsafe buildings. The team
normally carries out 200 inspections a month, but political unrest and
violence in Dhaka means they have achieved only 50 visits in the first few
months of 2015.

One building they were able to inspect was the Mega Chois Knitwear factory.
Having been found highly unsafe, it is now suspended from the Accord
process for refusing to evacuate. The inspection found that the factory had
600 employees, a childcare centre on the sixth floor, and just one unprotected
exit out of the building. According to Loewen: The chances of people getting
out of that building in the case of a fire are extremely limited.

Rana Plaza collapse: dozens charged with murder

Defendants could face the death penalty in Bangladesh if found guilty over
disaster in which more than 1,100 people died

Authorities in Bangladesh have filed murder charges against dozens of people

for their roles in the collapse in 2013 of Rana Plaza that killed more than 1,100
people.

The charges were filed on Monday against 41 people, including the buildings
owner, Sohel Rana, and his parents and more than a dozen government
officials. The lead investigator, Bijoy Krishna Kar of the criminal investigation
department, said the charges were over their direct role in the deaths of 1,137
people in the collapse of the garment factory building.
Rana Plaza: rallies in Bangladesh
as victims await compensation
Read more

Investigators initially had said the accused, who also include the owners of the
five factories in the building, would be charged with culpable homicide, but
they later changed their plans due to the gravity of the accident, Bangladeshs
worst industrial disaster.

If convicted of murder, the defendants could face the death penalty. The
maximum punishment for culpable homicide is seven years in jail.

Investigators said the shift from the culpable homicide charges came after the
investigation found that Rana, his staff and the management of the five
factories had forced the workers to enter the building despite their
unwillingness to work on the day of the accident after the building developed
major cracks a day earlier.

The police report called the deaths a mass killing. About 2,500 people were
injured in the disaster.

Kar, who submitted the charges to a court in Dhaka, Bangladeshs capital, said
a hearing would take place on 28 June to decide on further proceedings.

In a separate case, the accused will also face charges of violating safety rules
in Rana Plaza because additional floors were added to the original five-storey
building, which was meant for office space and shopping malls. Later, illegally
built upper floors were transformed into factories.

The April 2013 collapse of Rana Plaza, just outside Dhaka, highlighted the
grim conditions in Bangladeshs garment industry. The extremely low wages
have led global brands and retailers to choose it over China and other
developing countries.

The building collapse triggered an uproar in Bangladesh and overseas for

reforms in a sector that helps the country earn more than $20bn a year from
exports, mainly to the US and Europe.
 Two years after Rana Plaza, have conditions improved in Bangladeshs factories?

The Rana Plaza collapse brought the worlds attention to worker safety issues
and the human costs of cheap, fast fashion, resulting in some reforms to
Bangladeshs garment industry but more work remains

On 24 April 2013, an eight-story garment factory collapsed in Dhaka, the

capital of Bangladesh. The buildings fall killed 1,134 people and injured
hundreds of others.

The Rana Plaza tragedy was not caused by an earthquake or a terrorist attack,
but rather by poor construction and a lack of oversight and, in some ways,
by a growing global desire for more cheap fashion.

Its been two years since the Rana Plaza tragedy, and although much remains
to be done to ensure the rights and safety of workers in Bangladeshs still-
booming garment industry, progress has been made. Global brands including
H&M, Mango, Primark, the Gap and Walmart, among a dozen others, have
contributed $21.5m to the Rana Plaza Donors Trust Fund, which was set up to
award compensation to victims and their families.

According to Srinivas Reddy, Bangladesh director for the International

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Two years after Rana Plaza, have conditions improved in Bangladeshs factories?

The Rana Plaza collapse brought the worlds attention to worker safety issues and the
human costs of cheap, fast fashion, resulting in some reforms to Bangladeshs garment
industry but more work remains

Protestors in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on Friday demand compensation for victims of the

Rana Plaza building collapse during the second anniversary of the tragedy that
killed 1,129. Zakir Hossain Chowdhury/ZUMA Press/Corbis Photograph: Zakir
Hossain Chowdhury/Zakir Hossain Chowdhury/ZUMA Press/Corbis

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Amy Westervelt

@amywestervelt

Friday 24 April 2015 23.41 BSTLast modified on Friday 11 November 2016 13.18 GMT

On 24 April 2013, an eight-story garment factory collapsed in Dhaka, the

capital of Bangladesh. The buildings fall killed 1,134 people and injured
hundreds of others.

The Rana Plaza tragedy was not caused by an earthquake or a terrorist attack,
but rather by poor construction and a lack of oversight and, in some ways,
by a growing global desire for more cheap fashion.

Its been two years since the Rana Plaza tragedy, and although much remains
to be done to ensure the rights and safety of workers in Bangladeshs still-
booming garment industry, progress has been made. Global brands including
H&M, Mango, Primark, the Gap and Walmart, among a dozen others, have
contributed $21.5m to the Rana Plaza Donors Trust Fund, which was set up to
award compensation to victims and their families.

Made in Britain: UK textile workers earning 3 per hour

Read more

According to Srinivas Reddy, Bangladesh director for the International Labour

Organization (ILO), which is administering the fund, there is a shortfall of
$8.5m. The fund is voluntary so we cannot make any brand donate, Reddy
said via Skype from Dhaka. All we can do is encourage them to do so, or
encourage those that have donated to donate more.

Vocal protests have focused on late-to-donate brands like Benetton and The
Childs Place, while first movers Primark and H&M have received high praise
for their commitment to making things right.

But the real change will come in the form of improvements to worker safety
and workers rights. According to Reddy, Dhakas permitting offices have
simply not kept pace with its booming garment industry, leading to a situation
in which factories were being given permits without so much as a site visit,
much less monitoring.

That has begun to change since the Rana Plaza collapse. According to Reddy,
out of 3,508 factories identified as exporting clothing from Bangladesh, almost
75% have gone through building fire and safety assessments. As a result, 35
factories have been closed for failing to comply with structural integrity
standards.

That is not good news, necessarily, but whats important is to recognize that
we might have actually averted some building problems and accidents by
closing down these factories, Reddy said, and putting the remaining
factories through the remediation process that requires building owners to fix
various building safety issues.

Still, both brands and national leaders had promised that this entire process
the review and updating of all of Bangladeshs factories would be completed
by the two-year anniversary. So far, the review process is not quite finished
and building improvements have just begun.
A lot of work has happened, but the initial expectations seemed to be
unrealistic in terms of completing this massive amount of work, Reddy said.
A lot more work still needs to happen. A lot of commitments that were made
by brands, retailers and national stakeholders still have to be met.

Several brands and retailers are playing an active role in addressing worker
safety issues in Bangladesh, according to Reddy, in terms of both paying for
factories to be upgraded and working with government agencies and
nongovernmental organizations to draft guidelines and strategies for
improving the lot of garment workers.

However, those commitments are set to end in 2018. So we need to focus on

how to continue this work, train monitoring staff, and ensure that capacity is
built into the local authorities, Reddy said.

One problem that has yet to be addressed, according to Reddy, is the capacity
issue in Dhakas Capital Development Authority. The Authority approves
building permits and is supposed to monitor construction to ensure that
buildings are built according to the approved design. Currently they do not
really monitor, Reddy said. They grant permits and then dont monitor,
because they just dont have enough monitoring staff. That was one of the
problems with Rana Plaza they were approved for six floors and

built eight. Thats still a weak link and were asking the government to step
up.

Safety, but not security

Although the ILO and other NGOs are pleased with the progress that has been
made on worker safety, worker rights issues have lagged behind. At the end of
2012, there were 122 unions in Bangladeshs garment industry and they
represented less than 3% of workers. The Rana Plaza collapse spurred an
increase in both the number of unions and the number of workers joining
them, resulting in a more than 20% increase in factory-level unions in the
countrys garment district.
Read more

Today there are 437 unions, representing nearly 5% of workers in the industry.
Part of the remediation plans that came out of talks immediately following the
Rana Plaza collapse was the need to establish worker safety committees at the
citys factories, so that employees would have a place to voice concerns about
workplace safety. So far, those committees have not been formed because the
government has been slow to draft policies for their creation.

We believe this trend [of increased union membership and more workers
calling for safety committees] is mainly due to the aspirations of the workers
and the fact that theyve seen what happened in Rana Plaza, Reddy said.
Each worker might have had serious doubts about going into the building
and in fact some of the workers I spoke with said they did have doubts about
its safety but they had no power as individuals and no ability to say anything
about it, and so they kept going. And then it did go wrong.

Reddy added that the Bangladeshi government has also made the process of
starting and registering a union easier and more transparent, which has
helped spur their adoption, although he said there remains a lack of trust
between companies and unions.

Attention or pressure
The Rana Plaza collapse was certainly not the first such occurrence but it
struck a chord; it really seemed to resonate with people, said Stephanie
Hepburn, author of the book Hidden in Plain Sight, about human trafficking
in the fashion industry. Added Hepburn, founder of the ethical fashion site
Good Cloth: It caused policy shifts but it also caused a really noticeable shift
in consumer awareness.

Rana Plaza: Two years after the tragedy, why has so little changed?

Sam Maher
Read more

That attention has been good and bad for Bangladeshs garment industry,
according to Reddy. On the one hand, it has spurred international brands to
take a keen interest in the country, supplying funding, time and ideas to
improving the garment industry there. On the other, it has created pressure
for the industry to improve rapidly.

All these issues evolved over the course of the past 30 years, but people
wanted to see them fixed in months, Reddy said. Some people felt like, Why
is everyone focused on Bangladesh when there are a lot of other exporting
countries that dont meet these international standards?

The Rana Plaza reforms have not touched 40% of the countrys factories, and
these tend to be the facilities that are exporting to various countries through
small brands and retailers.

The hope now is that the world will continue to pay attention to these issues,
and that smaller companies and brands, not just the big players with
reputations to protect, will support reform as well.

Factory Collapse in Bangladesh

The collapse of the Rana Plaza building is, to date, the deadliest disaster in the
history of the garment industry worldwide.

Some 3,639 workers toiled in five factories housed in the Rana Plaza building
producing clothing for some ## U.S., Canadian and European clothing labels and
retailers. Eighty percent of the workers were young women, 18, 19, 20 years of
age. Their standard shift was 13 to 14 hours, from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 or 10:30
p.m., toiling 90 to 100 hours a week with just two days off a month. Young
helpers earned 12 cents an hour, while junior operators took home 22
cents an hour, $10.56 a week, and senior sewers received 24 cents an hour and
$12.48 a week.

On Wednesday morning, April 24, 2013 at 8:00 a.m., 3,639 workers refused to
enter the eight-story Rana Plaza factory building because there were large and
dangerous cracks in the factory walls. The owner, Sohel Rana, brought paid gang
members to beat the women and men workers, hitting them with sticks to force
them to go into the factory. Managers of the five factories housed in Rana Plaza
also told the frightened workers, telling them that if they did not return to work,
there would be no money to pay them for the month of April, which meant that
there would be no food for them and their children. They were forced to go in to
work at 8:00 a.m.

Rana Plaza tragedy: Bangladesh

puts 18 on trial
Accident in Dhaka killed 1,130 people, mostly
garment workers, prompting global outcry for
improved safety standards.

At 8:45 a.m. the electricity went out and the factories five generators kicked on.
Almost immediately the workers felt the eight-story building begin to move, and
heard a loud explosion as the building collapsed, pancaking downward.

1,137 confirmed dead at Rana Plaza. A year later, over 200 remain missing.

At least 18 people are to stand trial over the construction of a building that collapsed
three years ago in Bangladesh, killing nearly 1,130 people, mostly garment
workers.

The April 2013 collapse of Rana Plaza in Dhaka ranks among the world's worst
industrial accidents and prompted a global outcry for improved safety standards
in the world's second-largest exporter of readymade garments.

At least 130 witnesses will get their first chance to give testimony when the trial
of the accused of building violations gets under way on Tuesday.

Inside Story - Bangladesh: Sanctions for safety

It is alleged that three extra storeys were added to the six-floor structure.

The owner, Mohammad Sohel Rana, and former chief engineer are in custody, but at least
five of the accused are on the run.

Al Jazeera's Tanvir Chowdhury, reporting from Dhaka, said the victims demand
justice and expect the court speed the process.

"The victims of the accident are saying that this case will run for years for all we know,
knowing Bangladesh's justice system," he said.

"They say justice delayed is justice deinied.

"But we still have to see the outcome because Bangladesh does not have a good track record
of bringing people to justice in any major industrial accident."

Hundreds more witnesses will tell their stories when 41 people appear on murder charges in
a second trial in September.

The worst industrial disaster in Bangladeshi history put pressure on global brands such as
Gap, JC Penney and Walmart which have their clothes made at low cost in Bangladesh.

'Not enough'

Some foreign firms have signed up to new agreements to improve workplace conditions.

But rights groups say not nearly enough has been done.

"In 2015 the workers get some money from the Trust fund but still from the manufacturers
and the government they couldn't pay any compensation to the workers," Nazma Akther,
the president of the combined Garment Workers Federation, told Al Jazeera.

"And now most of the injured workers rhey are severely injured and they need proper
treatment and healthcare it is very absent and nobody takes care of them."

Almost three in four survivors have not been able to work due to physical ailments and
trauma.

Low labour costs and, critics say, shortcuts on safety, make Bangladesh the cheapest place
to make large quantities of clothing.

Companies are split over how to improve conditions.

Big European firms signed an accord that would make them legally responsible for safety
while US groups such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc have broken ties with non-compliant factories.

In 2013, the government raised the minimum wage for garment workers by 77 percent to
$68 and amended its labour law to boost worker rights, including the freedom to form trade
unions.

Disaster at Rana Plaza

A gruesome accident should make all bosses think harder about what behaving responsibly
means

THE collapse of an eight-storey garment factory in Rana Plaza on the outskirts of Dhaka on
April 24th killed at least 400 people and injured many more. It was probably the worst
industrial accident in South Asia since the Bhopal disaster in 1984, and the worst ever in the
garment industry. Local police and an industry association had warned that the building was
unsafe (see article). The owners reportedly responded by threatening to fire people who did
not carry on working as usual.

Much of the blame lies with Bangladeshi governments of all stripes, which have made only
rudimentary attempts to enforce the national building code, especially against politically
well-connected landlords.

With luck, the laws will now be applied, but nobody expects much.

The spotlight is therefore on the multinational companies whose orders from local factory
owners have led to the rapid recent growth of the garment industry in Bangladesh, the
worlds second-largest exporter of clothing after China. Familiar brands now stand accused
of exploiting poorly paid workers with a callous indifference to their safety. Two companies
whose products were found in the rubble at Rana PlazaPrimark, a cheap British label, and
Canadas Loblaw, whose brands include Joe Freshhave rapidly promised compensation to
victims and their families.

But it goes deeper than that. Clothing companies, after all have been to the fore in corporate
social responsibility (CSR). Prompted by earlier scandals over working conditions in far-
flung factories, firms like Nike and Gap have strived to deal with problems like child labour.
Now the disaster in Dhaka shows how hard it is to claim that your products are ethically
sourced. That is not just because supply lines are stretched: should you check the supplier of
your suppliers supplier? It is also because you are operating in a place where so little is to be
trusted. Is it, for instance, enough for a Western multinational to see the building certificate
for a Bangladeshi factory? Or should it have sent people to check every pillar? Though CSR
tends to be seen as a moral matter, it comes down to the hard practicalities of companies
reputations and risk registers.

Western firms can choose to respond in one of three ways. The first is to forget CSR, and
simply exploit labour wherever it is cheapestcounting on consumers back home to ignore
the blood, sweat and tears that went into making that cheap T-shirt or pair of trousers. That
may be the implicit strategy of many smaller firms, but it is hard to imagine any large
multinational being daft enough to proclaim it was doing it.

Second, they could quit Bangladesh and buy from factories in countries where the risk of
deadly industrial accidents is far smaller. For, say, a small upmarket retailer unable to check
everything, that may well make sense. It would remove a risk while putting pressure on
Bangladesh to police health-and-safety rules better. But if large Western firms left in droves,
it would damage not just Bangladesh but also their reputations.

A stitch in time

The third approach is to stay and try to change things. Even before the latest disaster,
Walmart had launched a fire-safety training academy there, and Gap had announced a plan to
help factory owners upgrade their plants. The clothing industry has held a series of meetings
with NGOs and governments, including Germanys and Americas, to develop a strategy to
improve safety in Bangladeshs 5,000 factories (see article).

Fine, but whatever the safeguards, there will be a gap between the cavalier promises of
ethical supply chains and the reality of corrupt politics and dodgy pillars. CSR has always
had a Utopian element. That was exposed in Bangladesh.

A Guide To The Rana Plaza Tragedy, And

Its Implications, In Bangladesh





 Alyssa Ayres ,
CONTRIBUTOR

I write about India, South Asia, and U.S. policy toward the region.

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

One year ago today, April 24, the world watched with horror
as a concrete building known as Rana Plaza cracked,
buckled and ultimately collapsed atop the garment workers
inside its factories. It would turn out to be the worst
accident in the garment industry anywhere. More than 1,100
people were killed, and 2,500 injured.
I wrote this week that Bangladesh must move fast to
preserve the garment sectors successes. It may seem
strange to focus on this industrys successes when recalling
such a tragedy. Yet the garment industry has been signally
important to Bangladeshs economic well-being, providing
nearly 80% of the countrys overall exports and employing
some four million people. The industrys workforce is
primarily women, and empowering them has been positive
for Bangladesh as well. But basic factory safety must be met,
otherwise retailers and brands will look to less risky places
to source their garments.
The Rana Plaza tragedy spurred the government of
Bangladesh, workers, factory owners,
associations, international buyers, international
organizations, and the United States and European Union
(EU) to mount public-private partnerships suited to
addressing the scale of Bangladeshs garment industry
challenge. This will not be easy. Bangladesh is now the
worlds number two garment exporter, second only to
China, and it has nearly 6,000 factories manufacturing for
export. Given the many pieces of this issue, I thought it
could be helpful to provide a guide to primary sources of
information to supplement my op-ed.
In 2013, Bangladesh passed labor law amendments (in
Bengali; International Labor Organization comment in
English here) which most importantly strengthened
workers right to freedom of association and collective
bargaining. This law made it possible for Bangladesh to at
last become part of an International Labor Organization-
International Finance Corporation (ILO-IFC) program
called Better Work. Better Work provides in-depth
assessment and advice to individual factories.
The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers Export
Association is the most important association coordinating
ready-made garment (RMG) exports from Bangladesh. It
tracks data from its members, such as the size and growth
of the industry over the last three decades, and the
composition of RMG exports as a total of Bangladeshs
overall exports.
In the wake of the tragedy, European and American retailers
and brands came together to form organizations focused on
ensuring quality, intensive inspection and remediation of
problems in the factories they source from. The
Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building
Safety involves Europes largest retailers and brands, and
some American brands, along with the ILO. The Alliance
for Bangladesh Worker Safety, which grew out of an
initiative led by retired senators George Mitchell and
Olympia Snowe, under the auspices of the
Bipartisan Policy Center, involves twenty-six American and
Canadian brands.
The tragedy led to a decision in Washington by President
Obama to suspend trade preferences to Bangladesh under
the Generalized System of Preferences, known as GSP. An
action plan charts out steps Bangladesh can take to requalify
for GSP. Since last July, the entire GSP program has been
held in abeyance since the U.S. Congress has not
reauthorized it.
Reason and responsibility: the Rana Plaza collapse
WILLIAM GOMES 9 May 2013

The Rana Plaza tragedy was an outcome of a corrupt system that is rotten to the core. Who should - and can - be held
accountable?

The deadly collapse of a building in Bangladesh late last month made news around the world and brought the country back into the
western media spotlight. On 24 April Rana Plaza, a eight-story building housing several garment factories, situated in Savar, 24
kilometers outside Dhaka, was reduced to rubble leading, so far, to the death of over 800 workers.

The 3.6 million strong communities of men and women working in the garment industry have enabled Bangladeshs position as the
world's second-largest apparel exporter. In the absence of basic workplace health and safety standards, these workers have
become the victims of systematic human rights violations, suffering while others get rich to make fashionable clothes for faceless
consumers. The very market that created the masterminds who are root and reason for this injustice remain untouched, while people
continue to argue over responsibility for the deaths of these workers. Whether its the garments owners, government, buyers,
retailers or consumers in the West, no one wants to take responsibility, instead pointing the finger at others.
From crack to collapse
According to media reports workers at Rana Plaza saw the cracks in the huge structure the day before the collapse but the
authorities did not take any precautionary steps. The building owner Sohel Rana allegedly told media on the same day that the
cracks were nothing serious and on 24th April, the day of the deadly incident, workers were forced to work and threatened with a
months salary cut if they did not comply. All this in the country with the worlds lowest minimum wage. Rana has been described as
the most hated Bangladesh, but an important detail has been missed in much of the reporting: Rana is not the owner of the
garment factories nor did he decide whether the garment factories would remain open or not. Rana has been an easy scapegoat, as
the building is named after him, but what about the systemic failings behind the front man?

Industrial police had asked the garment factory owners at Rana Plaza to keep the factories closed and only continue further
operations after consulting with expert structural engineers. The question that remains unaddressed is: why did the factory owners
and Rana work from the same playbook, and ignore this crucial advice?

The politics-business nexus

The politics-business nexus has long been the subject of public debate and discussion in Bangladesh. CNNs Christiane
Amanpour has noted that many politicians of the two major political partiesthe ruling Awami League (AL) and the Bangladesh
National Party (BNP)have garment businesses. But another example is the case of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and
Exporters Association (BGMEA), an organisation that has been referred to frequently in international media as keeping a tally of the
numbers dead in the Savar tragedy, and one that has demanded punishment for those responsible for it. It is not without irony that
their stylish high-rise headquarters in the Bangladeshi capital were illegally built, according to the verdict of the countrys Supreme
Court, which ordered the government to demolish the building within 90 days. Later on, the Supreme Court stayed the order,
allegedly due to political leaders of all parties favoring the BGMEA.

The Bangladesh Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, has callously dismissed the tragedy in Savar by stating on CNN that accidents
happen, much to the shock of her interviewer. In fact, Hasinas Home Minister, Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir, in an interview with BBC
Bangla, claimed, without a shred of evidence, that opposition party supporters may have shaken the building after the cracks
appeared, which may have lead to the deadly collapse. Additionally, Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith remarked, after the
death toll had surpassed 530, that the disaster wasnt really serious. These comments exemplify well the kleptocracy behind
Bangladeshs democratic faade.

Not only did Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina publicly deny the owner of Rana Plazas affiliation with her political party, the Member of
Parliament representing Savar, Murad Jang, publicly denied that Rana was ever associated with party politics. Shortly
thereafter, Ranas affiliation with Muradand his political activities as a member of the ruling party were exposed in the media.

Illegal building extensions

Emdadul Islam, chief engineer of the state-run Capital Development Authority, told media that the owner of the building had not
received the proper building consent, obtaining a permit for only a five-story building from the local municipality. The building was,
however, illegally extended by a further three stories to a total of eightan act ignored by the authorities due to Ranas political
connections.

Following the collapse, garment workers took to the streets in protest and demanded the arrest of Rana and the factory owners. In
response to the agitation Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordered police to arrest Rana and the owners of the garment factories that
were operating in the building. On 28th April Rana was arrested while he was trying to flee to India by road and brought back to
Dhaka.

The Rana Plaza tragedy was an outcome of a corrupt system that is rotten to the core. The building was built without observing
proper building codes and laws, and using poor materialssomething that should have been monitored from the beginning by
concerned authorities of the Bangladesh government, whose negligence is particularly culpable in this instance. Unfortunately, in
Bangladesh, any kind of permission for high-rise buildings can be obtained through bribes, and the building can be built without
procuring suitable building materials.

Sohel Rana, the owner of Rana Plaza and a Senior Joint Convenor of Awami Leagues youth front Jubo League in the Savar
municipality unit, constructed Rana Plaza in 2007. He did so by taking permission from the Savar Mayor, an Awami League member,
who, in fact, had no authority to issue this permit. This is all beyond the point, however, and the fundamental question remains: what
were the government authorities doing for so long if the building was constructed without proper permission years ago?

Who is responsible for the Rana Plaza tragedy?

In recent years the rapid expansion of the ready-made garments industry in Bangladesh has resulted in an increased demand for
high-rise buildings. Many ordinary buildings have been converted into factories and sometimes the owners of buildings add extra
floors without proper permission, as was the case in Rana Plaza. In this particular case various government authorities have notably
failed to inspect and monitor the illegal establishment of Rana Plaza. Even after the cracks on the building were broadcast in local
media, the government failed to act in a way that could have saved the lives of hundreds of extremely impoverished workers. In
addition to the role played by Western companies that profit from Bangladeshs cheap labor, Western media would do well to focus
on and expose Bangladeshi political corruption to a global audience.

The systemic failure of government protection of human rights and lack of respect towards workers right allows incident like Rana
Plaza to continue to happen. Beyond the famously low wages, unsafe working conditions and restrictions and repression of labour
unions plague the industry. The state has a duty to protect its citizen against human rights abuses by third parties, including
business enterprises, through regulation, policymaking, investigation and enforcement. But policymakers are also part of this profit-
making business and are strong protectors of corruption mechanisms. Today, there's nothing but false promises and dirty politics
from all parties. When the state itself protects the oppressors and limits access to judicial, administrative, or legislative protection
and corporate responsibility, prevention of any infringement of rights remains a dream for many of the victims of serious and
systemic human rights violations.

The Rana Plaza disaster is now making history as among the worst industrial accidents in Bangladesh, with a rising death toll and
scores more critically injured. The accident follows a fire at the Tazreen Fashion factory and Smart Fabrics on the outskirts of
Dhaka on 24 November 2012, leaving at least 117 dead and at least 200 injured. It was the deadliest factory fire in the nation's
history; but the scale of the tragedy has now been surpassed by the Rana Plaza incident.

Now is the time to start wide ranging protests in the UK and other parts of the western world, to make the local people aware of the
deadly work environment and the deaths of these poor workers by the profit-hungry business people who control the clothing
industry.

Retail group approves Bangladesh factories as safety concerns persist, report finds

Exclusive: Alliance consortium, which includes Walmart, Gap and Target,

has pushed back deadlines to implement fire exits, alarms and structural
renovations more than three years after deadly Rana Plaza collapse,
independent survey says

An organisation backed by global retailers including Gap, Target

and Walmart is giving passing grades to Bangladeshi factories that have yet to
implement life-saving safety changes the retailers pledged to put in place
following a deadly building collapse in 2013 that killed 1,137 people, according
to a new report published Monday.

The Guardian has been given an exclusive preview of the first independent
systematic survey of the Bangladeshi garment factories used by the Alliance
consortium of retailers set up after the deadly Rana Plaza factory collapse that
triggered a global consumer backlash against major retailers.

Rana Plaza collapse: workplace

dangers persist three years later,
reports find
Three and a half years after the building collapse, the authors
conclude that the factories that provide clothes to some of the
biggest names in retail have so far failed to implement key
renovations by their own mandated deadlines and that:

62% still lack viable fire exits;

62% do not have a properly functioning fire alarm system;

47% have major, uncorrected structural problems.

The report concludes that in some cases, once firm deadlines for
repairs and improvements set for 2014 and 2015 were scrapped to
be replaced with a 2018 deadline that coincides with the end of the
Alliance arrangement.

The Alliance disputed the reports findings, saying it relied on

inaccurate and outdated information. James Moriarty, country
director for the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, said he was
totally confident that the factories would meet retailers
standards by 2018, when the agreement ends.
The fatal collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in Savar, Bangladesh, in April 2013
is considered the worlds worst garment factory disaster. The disaster
highlighted the hazardous working conditions in Bangladeshs garment
industry and prompted promises of change from retailers including Gap,
H&M, Walmart and others.

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In the wake of the tragedy, retailers formed two groups to address safety
issues in Bangladesh. The first, Accord on Fire and Building Safety in
Bangladesh, is led by H&M and backed by Adidas, Benetton, Marks &
Spencer, Tesco and others. The signatories agreed to a legally binding
agreement in accordance with local and international unions and to publish
detailed public reporting of its progress.

Walmart declined to sign on to the Accord and founded the Alliance for
Bangladesh Worker Safety, a voluntary organization whose members include
Gap; Target; Hudsons Bay Company, whose brands include Saks Fifth Avenue
and Lord & Taylor; and VF Corporation, whose brands include North Face,
Timberland, Vans and Wrangler. The Alliance has not publish detailed reports
of its progress.

The new report, titled Dangerous Delays on Worker Safety, was compiled by
the International Labour Rights Forum, the Worker Rights Consortium, the
Clean Clothes Campaign and the Maquila Solidarity Network. It identified 175
factories which supply both Accord and Alliances signatories.

Using Accords detailed progress accounts from factories that also produce
garments for Alliance members, the authors compiled a progress report
looking at status reports for more than 2,000 required safety renovations
across 350 spreadsheets of data.
The report found of the 107 factories labelled as being on track by the
Alliance, 99 were still falling behind in one or more safety categories.

The Alliance has never offered any justification for the decision to ignore its
own safety deadlines. Nor has the Alliance explained why it is responsible to
allow factories four years to carry out life-saving renovations that should have
been completed in less than one, while still labeling those factories as On
Track, the authors of the report write.

In a letter to the reports authors, Moriarty explained the Alliances decision to

change its deadlines for renovations. With respect to the Alliances metrics
for categorizing a factorys progress, we have adjusted our measurements to
reflect the core question of whether a given factory will be substantially safe
when the Alliance sunsets in 2018, he wrote.

Moriarty questioned the reports methodology. He told the Guardian he

regularly met with Accord partners and never has anything like this been
raised about us falling behind on remediation issues.

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Moriarty said the two organisations now split the assessment of factories when
both parties used the same facilities and while he conceded Accord members
received regular updates, he said he was confused by the assertion that
folks sending emails once a month is more reliable than having trained
engineers inspect factories and reporting their findings.

I trust my engineers. They are not lying to me and I am not lying when I put
things down on paper, he said.

We in the Alliance are doing something that has never been done before. We
are taking an existing industry that is seriously flawed and trying to correct it
from scratch, he said. The assertion that we could get all this done in one
year is frankly ludicrous to anyone who has an engineering or safety
background and understands the past state or the current state of the
industry.
Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, defended the
reports methodology. He said Accord staff were well aware of any changes in
status and regularly in contact with factory managers before they updated
their reports. What would be their incentive not to report progress? he said.

The report argues the lack of progress is placing the lives of thousands of
workers in jeopardy. The authors calculate some 120,000 garment workers
employed in the 62 factories that produce items for Walmart do not have fully
viable fire exit systems. Another 55,000 people are employed in factories
making clothes for Gap that had compromised fire exits, the report found.

The issues persist even though 96% of the factories in the sample were
inspected well over two years ago, the authors write.

While the group has also been critical of Accord factories, Nova said the H&M-
led group had moved to address issues more quickly than the Alliance group
and credited their greater transparency for the difference.

In a significant move to improve transparency, Moriarty said that from

January all information from each of the Alliances visits would be published
on the Fair Factories Clearinghouse (FFC) website, the same system that the
Accord uses.

Nova said two main factors were contributing to the lack of progress: retailers
were not putting enough pressure on factory owners to make improvements,
and they were not contributing enough money to help the factory owners
make the repairs. The average cost of implementing the promised safety
renovations is between $400,000 and $500,000.

What motivated Walmart and Target to do the right thing is public

embarrassment. We are three and a half years on [from Rana Plaza] and they
assume memories are fading, said Nova.

This data set, if anything, overstates progress. Im not saying that nothing has
been done its just that this work should have been done a long time ago and
you still have issues that could lead to fatalities, he said.
Out of the ashes of Rana Plaza

We will not stand for this any more, says Leeli, a garment worker in Bangladeshs capital city,
Dhaka. We all talk about life before and after Rana Plaza. Leeli became unionized, joining the
National Garment Workers Federation (NGWF), after coming across a rally and being surprised to
learn that a strike had led to workers getting compensation after a factory closure. She lives in a
slum close to work, but her family, including her son whom she gets to see just once a year, live
in her village some distance away. Most of her wages go to them.

The Rana Plaza factory collapse in April 2013, in which 1,130 people died and 2,500 were injured,
was a defining moment for women like Leeli. The garment industry is built on exploitation and,
since Rana Plaza and the subsequent media coverage, workers are all too aware of it. They are
organizing and fighting back against the global fashion brands which, despite dictating the design
of the clothes down to the last stitch, claim they have little power to ensure the basic rights
of workers.

The right to form unions is the primary concern for garment workers who know that real change
on the factory floor comes from them, not from fashion brands or their government. They also
know that nothing is stopping another Rana Plaza from happening tomorrow. Earlier this year, for
example, a fire broke out in a garment factory in Dhaka. Had it happened an hour later, the
factory would have been filled with 6,000 workers, unable to escape.

The much-heralded Bangladesh Accord on Health and Safety was signed just weeks after Rana
Plaza and was the first time the fashion industry acknowledged its direct responsibility for factory
conditions. Yet this legally binding agreement is due to end in 2018 and whether or not it will be
considered a success hinges on the extent to which it can push brands to guarantee the changes
needed to make factories safe over the next two years. The workers are not holding their breath.
They insist that the only way they can improve their conditions is by organizing collectively. On
the day of the collapse, the workers in Rana Plaza had seen the cracks in the walls and rushed
outside, yet were ordered back to work. As individuals they had little power to refuse; had they
been unionized, they may have been able to resist their bosses demands. Hours later, they were
buried in rubble.

In July 2013, Bangladesh amended its labour law, making it much easier for unions to be formed,
though the rule remains that 30 per cent of a factorys workers must have joined before a union
will be officially recognized and registered. The widespread threats and intimidation that workers
face when they organize means that reaching this 30-per-cent threshold is incredibly difficult,
particularly in larger factories where it could mean signing up well over 1,000 workers.
Terminating the contracts of workers who attempt to unionize their workplace is also
common practice.

Still, the past three years have seen new unions being established and a steady growth in
membership, though only five per cent of the workforce is unionized. Not surprisingly, local
unions spend much of their time fighting to have sacked workers reinstated. Often, more energy
is spent protecting union leaders than on the ongoing issues of forced overtime, unpaid wages,
unsafe drinking water and undue pressure to reach production targets.
High-risk struggle
Most of the factory-level union representatives are women, yet the union leaders themselves are
mostly men. Given that 85 per cent of garment workers in Bangladesh are women, this disparity
and lack of representation causes problems union issues tend to be framed as generic labour
rights issues rather than womens rights issues. Women are disproportionately affected by
working conditions, not only regarding their reproductive health, but also because employers
treat women in the workplace differently from men. We are the ones always doing the difficult
tasks, explains one woman. The men will do the packing and earn much more than us. But we
work very hard, too.

It is hard to find a unionized female garment worker who has

not been verbally abused and physically or sexually assaulted
The need for female leadership is now on the agenda of many trade unions, though in
Bangladesh this requires challenging a broader, entrenched culture of patriarchy, and change is
slow. Responses are varied, from running gender awareness and womens leadership training
sessions, to amending union bylaws to restrict key leadership positions such as general
secretary and president to women only.

This is not about empowering women, a term that suggests that power is something to be given
to women, rather than coming from the women themselves. The reality is that women are
actively fighting for their rights, despite the danger this puts them in. Factory owners routinely
engage gangs of thugs to beat, threaten to kill and sexually harass women who lead and join
unions. It is hard to find a unionized female garment worker who has not been verbally abused
and physically or sexually assaulted. These abuses have become so normalized that the women
accept the risk as part of the struggle.

Challenges ahead
After Rana Plaza, the world woke up to how global fashion brands are implicated in the appalling
working conditions in the factories that make our clothes. But fashion brands continue to play a
significant part in denying workers the right to unionize, despite this being the best prevention
against another factory collapse. By refusing to publish details of the factories in their supply
chain, they prevent local trade unions investigating working conditions and using the information
to lobby brands and their customers. A handful of companies, including H&M and Marks and
Spencer, have released their supply chain information, but they have not indicated the volume of
production taking place in each factory. This means that when abuses are found, the brands
usual retort is that only a small percentage of their clothes are produced there, and that they
therefore have limited leverage on working conditions.

As if all these challenges werent enough for the women garment workers who are trying to
organize, the existence of so-called yellow unions makes their situation even harder. Yellow
unions are established by factories, or linked to political parties, and they stop workers from
being able to form their own independent, representative unions by actively preventing workers
fighting for their rights. By purportedly representing workers, they dissuade them from collective
action and make it difficult for them to know that it is possible to have a truly
representative union.

International union federations such as IndustriALL need to be more discerning about which
unions they affiliate with. If they allow yellow unions to join the federation, they undermine the
independent trade unions struggle to support workers. By legitimizing yellow unions, one
unionist explains, they have polluted the labour movement in every country. The last thing
workers need is for corrupt unions to give organizing a bad name.

Alia, a woman who has worked tirelessly for womens rights with the NGWF, underlines the need
for solidarity. Without being able to work together and fight together, she says, we have
nothing. Workers desperately need access to unions and to the support and education they
provide. Garment workers united, organized and educated through their unions could and
should be a force to be reckoned with.

Aftermath of the Rana Plaza Tragedy: Social

and Health Issues Emerge Amid Struggle for
Workers Rights
arment worker who escaped from the 8th floor mourns for her co-workers.

Two months after the Rana Plaza building collapse in Savar, Bangladesh on April 24, where over a thousand workers
died and countless others were injured, families who lost a loved one or workers who were seriously injured face
obstacles in obtaining compensation for lost wages, adequate health care for issues related to their injuries, and
counseling for severe post-traumatic stress from the tragedy. It is hard to imagine the full ripple effects of the tragedy
in the workers families and communities, unless one realizes that garment workers were the primary or steady wage
earners in their families, who were overwhelmingly young women. The workers salaries supported not only their
immediate families, but also that of their extended families. Injuries, including those to pelvic areas, have created
womens health issues unique to a predominantly female workforce.

Female Garment Workers as Primary Wage Earners

Sixteen-year old Sabina supports her three sisters and parents as a garment worker. She is unable to attend school
because she is forced to work to support her younger sisters and parents. Now, traumatized by the collapse, she no
longer wants to go back to the garment factory. Her mother by her side as she recuperates with other workers in a
dedicated Rana Plaza unit at the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed, Sabina worries about what other work
she could find. Most likely, she will return to her village.

Pressure on Children to Drop Out of School to Support Their Family

The tragedys impact on the workers children also is not often mentioned in the news. Shilpi, whose arm was
amputated in order to free her from the rubble, has three daughters and one son. As a helper, she earned 3,000 taka
monthly ($38) for the family. Her husband, who suffers from a chronic health condition, is unable to work. Without
any income, she cannot pay for the childrens school fees, and so now all three of her daughters have stopped
attending school. Most likely, they will be forced to take on some work to support the family. Shilpis story is common
and the inability to work will increase the pressure on young children to seek work and will increase the amount
of child labor in Bangladesh. When asked what she hopes for the future, Shilpi says, I want to work, so my kids can
go to school. While many children lost one parent, many children have been orphaned as a result of the tragedy,
and they have no source of support. It is reported there are about 20 or so such children. There has been no
monitoring of their financial and educational needs. It is not clear whether they have any guardians who are able to
take care of them. Grandparents who have taken responsibility for the children are also unable to care for them.

The collateral impact of Rana Plaza on families already economically stretched will create shifts in familial
relationships that will reveal some much-needed gaps in services. Understandably, the first line of attention is on
holding the retailers responsible and gaining some compensation for the workers, but in the coming months, non-
profit and social service organizations will need to pay serious attention to the other socio-economic impacts of the
tragedy.
Monetary Compensation from Tragedy is not Reaching Everyone
Even in the area of compensation, workers complain that they are not receiving back wages from factory owners or
the compensation from the government.

Some workers have reported to have received an average of 10,000 taka ($125), but when you count that their
average monthly wages ranged from 3,000-10,000 taka monthly ($38-$125) that income would quickly be depleted.
Family members run around frustrated trying to gather documents, to get the compensation for their families.
Advocates, capable to identify the exact hindrance in the distribution of financial support, are necessary to ensure
that workers get their due compensation.
Women Centered Health Services for the Young Female Worker
Another issue that is least discussed is the diminished role of women in the household from a primary income earner,
and those who are now disabled, to an economic burden. Most of the women I interviewed at the CRP Rana Plaza
Ward were the primary income earners for their families or were the ones who earned a steady income in contrast to
their husbands who were day laborers. Physical therapist, Tanzeena Kabir, communicated to me that in addition to
amputees and lower back fractures, one common injury she is observing is pelvic fractures. The pelvic fracture either
completely destroys the womens uterus or injures reproductive organs, and so women are unable to have children or
maintain an intimate relationship with their husbands for an extended period of time.
Rubina Begum who worked at Rana Plaza for two years, suffers from a serious pelvic fracture. She shared with me
that doctors said she cannot maintain what she says a husband-wife relationship for one year. Her husband is a
day laborer, and she, like Shipi, is the primary earner for her immediate family comprised of her seven-year old son
and extended family. She worries that now she will be neither valued as a worker nor as a wife. Her case is not
alone as many women who find their diminished economic ability as wage earners and social standing as
wife/mothers will create difficulties at home. There need to be better studies on this as well as access to women
centered heath services in order to support the women during this transition period.
Alternative Sources of Income to Maintain Womens Financial Independence
Despite the debate on the broader macro-economic issues on the processes of Bangladeshi underdevelopment,
releasing the female labor force from a predominantly agrarian society in order to provide necessary labor power for
the export oriented garment industry was not a smooth process. It has always been exploitative and often traumatic
for young women leaving their families and villages to migrate to cities. However, one major argument in favor of
garment factory work was that it provided the opportunity for women to enter into contractual relationships with the
factory owners and thus provide conditions for her transformation from being free from personal dependence to an
individual social person. Because of its higher pay, the garment work offers some amount of financial independence
and a sense of individuality and empowerment compared to other jobs typically held by working class women such as
domestic work. No longer able to earn similar wages, or in some cases work at all, these women also cannot
assume a traditional role of wife/mother. It is not surprising that all of the women I spoke to at the CRP and at the
Rana Plaza site expressed a strong desire to work with dignity. Rubina believes that the Bangladeshi Government is
responsible for this tragedy as well as the US retailers. What is more horrific and disgraceful about the Bangladeshi
Governments and the US retailers lack of action and concern is that Rubinas demand, like others in her
predicament, is not much, she asks for just enough for her family to survive. She earned, with overtime 7,000 taka
monthly, which approximately is $80. She too worries about her sons education and what his life will be like now.
Despite the serious injuries and trauma from the building collapse, the women consistently echoed their concerns for
their childrens future, and their ability to economically support their families. Sonali Begum laments, I made clothes
for kids, pretty dresses, but now I cant even feed my own kids. She fractured her lower back and cannot walk
without physical therapy and requires the use of a back brace. She left her daughter with her mother in their rural
village, and her income supported her daughter and her mother.
Improvement of Labor Standards and Delivery of Comprehensive Services from City to Rural Areas
Given that 90% of garment workers are women, and young, in their 20s, the gendered aspects of the tragedy reveals
the need for comprehensive womens health services as well as income safety-nets for families to continue to send
their children to school so that they are not forced to abandon school in order to work. In addition, organizations need
to fight for improved labor standards in the industry. The challenge to the delivery of services will be the availability
of information on workers and the maintenance of proper records. Because the garment sector pulls women from
rural areas, many workers have returned to their village homes because living in Dhaka without any source of income
is very expensive. They return to households that relied on their income. Mallika Begum would send almost half of
her wages to her parents. Alternative income sources need to be created in the rural areas so that women can
continue to provide some income to their families, and recuperate and rehabilitate with extended family. The delivery
of these dispersed services in rural areas will require coordination among worker groups that have the workers
contact information and non-profit social service providers. This coordination is critical in order to administer
comprehensive health services to the women, not only in Dhaka, but also in the rural areas.
Culturally Competent Social Work and Mental Heath Services
Another key issue related to the collapse is the need for culturally appropriate mental health services. Mental health
issues are generally taboo in Bangladeshi society and without a mechanism to process the loss, many family
members come to the building collapse site to mourn their loved ones. Given the enormity of the tragedy, there has
not been an opportunity to publicly mourn the deaths and those who survived feel either intense guilt or suffer from
depression because they cannot imagine their futures. Some families have not yet been able to locate the bodies of
their loved ones. There is also an anxiety of being forgotten. This is understandable because while advocates focus
their attention on improving safety and legal norms, the workers who will benefit from the advocacy are often
rendered invisible. Family members hold pictures of their wives, daughters or sisters, as if they fear they will be
forgotten.
Memorial to Remember Workers from Rana Plaza, Tazreen and Other Workplace Tragedies
On a national level, there must be a memorial for workers who lost their lives at Rana Plaza and Tazreen Factory and
for all workers in general who have lost their lives due to unsafe workplaces. As of today, there sits an abandoned
car in a pool of yesterdays rain, next to a pile high of rubble.

A sign reads, in part, that workers who died there are shaheed. Shaheed is popularly translated to signify martyrs,
but a better translation is to bear witness. The workers who lost their lives bear witness to the injustices of
workplace conditions. Memorials can serve as powerful remembrances for lives lost and as constant physical
reminders to not allow such tragedies to repeat themselves. Memorials also create for workers and their families a
respectful space to collectively mourn the senseless deaths.
In addition, for families who have not been able to locate bodies, the memorial can serve as the site where they can
at least find some peace. For mothers who already come to the site to mourn their daughters, it will give them a
place to honor their loved ones. It seems unconscionable that such a memorial would not exist given the shiny high
story building by the Bangladesh Manufucturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), the association of politically
connected garment factory owners.

Improve Labor Conditions and Form Trade Unions

On the workplace and international front, workers rights advocates continue to vigorously fight for improved
workplace conditions and safety for garment workers. One such advocate, Kalpona Akter, Executive Director of
Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, returned recently from a Walmart shareholder meeting in June 2013 urging
them to sign on to the Bangladesh Safety Accord (Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh).

Her organization plans to intensify their pressure on US retailers to hold them accountable for the safety of the
garment factories and for compensation for the women who need assistance to support their families. She urges
consumers to continue to protest and pressure these brands to do the right thing. Groups like United Students
Against Sweatshops and 99 Pickets have been staging direct actions at Gap and Target. Walmart, Gap, Childrens
Place, and Sears, among other US retailers still refuse to sign the Bangladesh Safety Accord, but instead they
announced it would develop its own non-binding safety measures.
As our conversation winded down on how Americans can show solidarity with Bangladeshi workers and her
organizations work to get more retailers to sign the accord, she turns to the pictures of the Tazreen Factory fire that
killed at least 117 workers. She said, sometimes, I feel activist guilt because I was unable to help these women,
and prevent the Rana Plaza building collapse. But as she flipped through the pictures on her computer (you get the
sense that she does this periodically) shes given a renewed sense of purpose and energy for her fight. Given the
scale of the tragedy, and the substantial battle needed to get Walmart and Gap to agree to safety measures, it makes
sense that the workers suffering animates her struggle.
Support and Build Capacity for Worker Rights Groups
One is both inspired by the humility of workers I spoke with whose main concern is to support their families with
dignity and Ms. Akter for her joyful optimism for social change in face of such devastating tragedies Tazreen Factory
fire and the Rana Plaza building collapse. In fact, Ms. Akter has been advocating for garment workers rights for
years, first as a garment worker until she was blacklisted for organizing, and now in her role at the Bangladesh
Center for Worker Solidarity. However, like many organizations working on the ground, she struggles for funding to
keep her organization afloat. In the face of such tragedy, it is natural to want to provide immediate monetary relief
directly to workers, and it is being done. However, for long-term care and advocacy for workers, organizations like
the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity and others working with workers like Sramabikash Kendra (Centre for
Labor Education and Development), which plays a strong advocacy role with regard to policies that affect the lives of
workers, should be supported.

In the coming months, it is extremely critical to continue to struggle for workers rights, both at the national and
international levels, including encouraging the formation of robust and independent trade unions. It is also critical to
provide comprehensive services and long-term care for workers unable to financially support themselves or their
families. Fundraising efforts need to focus on building the capacity of organizations to be able to provide long-term
care for workers. Symbolic as it may seem, there must be a place where workers can collectively mourn and heal
from the trauma of this senseless tragedy in the form of a memorial.
As one sign reads at the site, the workers who died here are shaheed or their lives bear witness to this tragedy. Let
us, too, not forget them.

Bangladesh Issues 24 Additional Murder Arrest

Warrants Concerning Rana Plaza Tragedy
A court in Bangladesh has reportedly issued arrest warrants against 24 people who've fled murder
charges following the Rana Plaza factory collapse, which occurred two years ago and left over 1,100
dead.

The owner of the building, Sohel Rana, his parents and at least a dozen government officials were also
charged with murder back in June. According to Fashionista, primary defendant Rana is currently in jail
and 16 others are awaiting trial on bail.

Additionally, the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights just released a report exposing
that only 27 percent of the factories in Bangladesh are part of the two safety programs that formed as
results of the tragedy. It also states that only eight factories have passed final inspection out of the 3,425
institutions that were looked at.

Bangladesh which is the second largest exporter of garments in the world, after China exported
$18.63 billion worth of garments from July 2014 to March 2015. The industry has been targeting exports
of $27 billion by the end of the financial year in July.
Back in April, The Benetton Group donated an additional $1.1 million to the Rana Plaza Donors Trust
Fund in support of victims of the 2013 garment factory tragedy. The Milan-based clothing company
previously contributed $500,000 to BRAC, a Bangladesh-based non-governmental aid organization.

A few months earlier, The Benetton Group agreed to support the Rana Plaza Donors Trust Fund,
alongside other fashion firms Inditex, El Corte Ingls and others.

"With a tragedy of this scale, no financial contribution can ever really be enough, but we welcome
Benetton's decision to pay more than its calculated share of the fund based on the report published by
PwC," Avedis Seferian, president and CEO of Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production, said
at the time.

Tragedy and Profit

T he Bangladeshi garment industry has grown dramatically over the past three decades the

annual value of RMG exports jumped from $116 million in 1985 to $25.4 billion in 2015. A
beneficiary of the countrys high population density and limited employment opportunities, the
industry now employs roughly 4 million workers, most of whom are female rural-to-urban migrants.

As Joshna, a garment worker, described it:

All my coworkers have moved from rural areas to this city in search of a better job and life. They
were all struggling in their village and faced many hardships to fulfill their familys needs . . . We
people from the rural areas are poor and we will do anything and everything which people from
Dhaka wont do.

Across the globe, only Sri Lankan garment employees make less than their Bangladeshi counterparts
($66 per month versus $68 per month, as per the new minimum wage in Bangladesh). Inexperienced
RMG employees in China, by contrast, start at between $156 and $266 monthly.

In addition to paying rock-bottom wages, the industry keeps down costs by neglecting basic
workplace safety and refusing to recognize workers rights. For the RMG factory workforce, this
profit-driven calculation has been deadly. In 2012, 123 garment workers died in a fire at Tazreen
Fashions, and the 2013 collapse of the Rana Plaza building killed 1,138 and injured over 2,500
garment employees who were working on the upper floors.
Maya a twenty-year-old who left her village after a violent storm destroyed her house, forcing her
family to build a makeshift shelter out of clothes arrived in Dhaka a month before the Rana Plaza
collapse, and spent two days asking for work in the vicinity of the building. She counts her blessings
her search was unsuccessful. I just thought that if I had gotten the job in Rana Plaza, I would have
been dead by now, she told me.

The Rana Plaza tragedy has spurred efforts to improve wages and working conditions for
Bangladeshs garment factory employees.

In 2013, trade unions and two hundred clothing companies mostly from Europe, including H&M,
Primark, and Inditex (the owner of Zara) signed onto the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in
Bangladesh, a five-year binding agreement with regular factory inspections, corrective action plans,
and training programs, all overseen by NGO observers. In the same year, brands like Gap, Target,
and Walmart formed the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, promising to respect workers rights
through similar commitments (but without trade union involvement or third-party observation).

More oversight has brought some improvements. Since the Rana Plaza collapse, at least thirty-
five structurally unsafe factories have been closed, unions in the industry have more than tripled, and
governmental labor inspectors have increased threefold. The minimum wage for garment workers has
risen by 77 percent, a response to large protests by garment workers in the capital.

However, significant problems remain. Only 5 percent of garment workers are unionized; few of the
garment workers I spoke with even knew what a trade union was. Three months after the mandated
wage increase, around 40 percent of factories in Dhaka were reportedly still paying below the legal
minimum. And even if workers receive the full minimum wage, they still dont earn enough to feed a
family in Dhaka.

Without any overtime I get 6,000 or 5,000 taka, Shokhina, a factory worker, told me. If I spend
4,000 taka on rent, how much do you think I have left? It is a big problem to feed five people with
2,000 taka monthly.

Intensifying climate change threatens to quash any further improvements for Bangladeshi garment
workers.
Since the middle of the twentieth century, Bangladesh has seen a steady increase in temperature,
along with rising sea levels and more frequent, more powerful storms. In recent years, Cyclones Sidr
(2007) and Aila (2009) both ravaged the country, affecting millions of Bangladeshis, especially in the
southern coastal region.

The stories of the women I spoke to were harrowing: lost homes, destroyed beyond repair or washed
away with river bank erosion; dead crops and starving families after weeks of flooding; income loss
for farm laborers and their families when the crops they were hired to tend were damaged or
destroyed; and growing debts that would loom over whole families for years to come.

Some were displaced immediately. For others, the effects were more gradual. But the net result has
been a steady flow of migrants into big cities particularly Dhaka and Chittagong, the hubs of the
RMG industry. Over the past two decades, the industry has absorbed 2.8 million additional workers
(growing from 1.2 million in 1995 to 4 million in 2015).

Women are particularly vulnerable in such a slack labor market because they have few employment
opportunities or potential sources of income outside of garment work. The power disparity fosters an
environment in which displaced workers, eager to regain their financial and material footing, are
treated as expendable. And despite struggling with poor wages and working conditions, the female
workers I met were reluctant to complain to their employers or protest.

All the better for capital. While profitability varies from firm to firm, it is clear that increasing
urbanization facilitated by climate change has bolstered the RMG industrys capacity to
expand and drive economic growth in Bangladesh.

Doubly Oppressed

T he women I interviewed are hence doubly oppressed by unfettered global capitalism.

First, they suffer from a climate crisis they did little to create. Their carbon footprint is vanishingly
small, yet due to an abundance of cheap fossil fuel, they bear the consequences of the Global Norths
cumulative emissions.
Second, in a context in which foreign direct investment is free from binding international regulations
and union density is low, they endure dangerous working conditions, abusive employers, and long
hours of fast-paced labor. While they are paid poverty-level wages, multinational branded retailers
make extortionate profits.

The two also reinforce each other: climate change pushes women out of rural areas and into urban
factories, where unrestricted production boosts global capitalisms massive carbon emissions.

Many other countries with large rural agricultural populations are also highly vulnerable to the
effects of climate change. When flooding in the Mekong Delta, for example, accelerates migration to
Ho Chi Minh Citys garment production zones, how will Bangladeshs garment industry cope with
the additional competition?

Four million Bangladeshi factory workers are now dependent on the continuation of foreign
investment in the garment industry for their livelihood. A higher level of competition between Ho
Chi Minh Citys workers could enable Vietnamese employers to lower wages and offer potential
investors cheaper production contracts than Bangladesh. In such a situation, would Bangladeshi
factories follow suit and underbid Vietnam to keep them from relocating?

In a footloose industry like apparel production, climate change increases competition between
workers in Dhaka on a local scale and on a global scale, pitting entire populations of climate-affected
people against one another in a race to attract investment.

Climate change is not just a tale of hardship and woe. It is also a tale of wealth and excess. The
Bangladeshi garment industry illustrates how global capitalism and climate change are intertwined
how the latter both stems from social inequalities and simultaneously widens those same
inequalities. The fight for climate justice is inseparable from the fight against capitalism.
 Up to 150,000
Bangladesh workers
lost jobs after Rana
Plaza safety overhaul

Some 220 garment factories have shut down

in Bangladesh with the loss of up to 150,000
jobs after the collapse of Rana Plaza shone a
light on unsafe working conditions in the
ready-to-wear industry, triggering a wave of
inspections, according to a report on
Saturday.

More than 1,100 workers were killed when the

building collapsed in 2013, creating urgent
demands for global retailers to do more to
ensure the safety of their workers in
Bangladesh, the world's second biggest
garment exporter after China.

Since then, the $24 billion industry has been

in the throes of a massive safety overhaul,
with more than 2,000 of 3,500 exporting
factories inspected by the government or as a
result of retailer-led initiatives.

German-based NGO Transparency

International Bangladesh (TIB)said many
factories had closed down because they
failed to meet the stricter safety measures
and better terms for their workers, or due to a
fall in orders.

It carried out a research between April 2014

and March 2015 which revealed that the rate
of factory closures was nearly four times that
of the previous year, while job losses had
tripled.
"The factories, especially small and medium-
sized factories were closed during this time
due to cancellation of work orders from the
buyers and lack of compliance," TIB
Executive Director Iftekhar Uzzaman told
Reuters.

"It is feared that if the process continues, up

to 700,000 workers may face loss of jobs."

The government has rejected the survey

results, saying most of the closures were
among the sub-contractors.

"A number of factories were shut down, but

those are small factories and did not have
direct buyers," Mikail Shipar, secretary at the
Ministry of Labour and Employment, told
Reuters.

"At the same time, the compliant factories

who have ISO certificates continued to
expand due to good business," he said,
adding these had absorbed some of the
workers who had lost their jobs.

Iftekhar said that while 95 percent of factories

had implemented the new minimum wage
requirements, there had been complaints of
irregular payments and pressure on the
workers to raise their productivity by 60
percent.

He also cited lack of accountability to monitor

the activities of the inspectors, and lack of
transparency in handling a $19 million fund
collected from buyers and international
organisations to help toward worker
compensations.

Fourteen brands, including JC Penney and

Carrefour , which traded with factories based
in Rana Plaza had not contributed to the fund,
while Wal-Mart had donated only $1 million,
much less than expected, Iftekhar said,
quoting the TIB report.
Two years since the Rana Plaza
collapse in Bangladesh
By Sarath Kumara
5 May 2015

None of the fundamental issues that led to the Rana Plaza

disaster and the deaths of over 1,120 people and the
wounding of 2,400 others have been addressed in the two
years since Bangladeshs worst industrial disaster.
Rana Plaza, an eight-storey sub-standard building that
housed five garment factories at Savar, just outside Dhaka,
collapsed on April 24, 2013. No worker would have been killed
or injured if garment company managers had not forced
reluctant employees back into the building, which had begun
showing serious structural cracks a day earlier.
Rana Plaza, in fact, was a catastrophe waiting to happen,
highlighting the deadly conditions facing approximately 4.5
million workers in nearly 5,000 factories in Bangladesh.
Facing international outrage over the tragedy, Prime Minister
Sheik Hasina and local garment manufacturers, as well as
giant US and European retailers, promised to improve
working and safety conditions, and increase wages. These
promises were worthless. There has been no real change in
industrial safety. The brutal exploitation of Bangladeshi
workers continues unabated.
In February this year, a fire in a five-storey plastics factory in
Dhaka killed 13 workers. In March, at least six workers died
when a building extension under construction in
Mongla collapsed. While these disasters did not occur in
garment factories, they show that the governments
concerns about apparel workers and industrial safety were
public relations exercises.
No one has been convicted for the Rana Plaza disaster even
though the building owner Sohel Ranaa regional leader of
the ruling Awami Leaguedeclared the building safe after
cracks had appeared. Two cases were filed against Rana
under the criminal code and building construction legislation,
but three charge sheets on these cases have not been acted
upon.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) and other groups
estimated that $US30 million was needed to compensate
survivors and relatives of those killed in the disaster. Several
major retailers agreed to contribute to this meagre fund, but
14 companies, including Lee Cooper, JC Penney and
Carrefour, refused to pay anything.
The US giant Wal-Mart contributed just $1 million. Benetton,
an Italian company with a 1.6 billion turnover in 2013 and
6,000 stores internationally, recently paid $1.1 million but only
after an online petition of more than a million people
demanded that it contribute. Two years on, only $23 million
has been paid into the fund.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently noted that the
compensation paid to survivors was not sufficient to pay their
medical bills and cover their loss of livelihood. Transparency
International Bangladesh (TIB) reported that although the
Bangladesh government has collected around $16 million to
compensate workers, only $2.48 million has been distributed
to the victims.
The Bangladesh government has denied these figures but
Syed Sultanuddin Ahmed, a senior official of the Bangladesh
Institute of Labor Studies, told the media it was absolutely
frustrating and unacceptable that many victims were still
waiting for compensation and rehabilitation. Centre for Policy
Dialogue research director Khondaker G. Moazzem said:
Many of the injured victims are still suffering from various
kinds of physical and mental problems ... many of them are
constrained by inadequate financial capacities.
One victim, Jasmin, who was hospitalised for five months
because her spinal cord was snapped, has only received
60,000 taka ($US771). Her monthly wage was 100,000 taka.
Jasmin spends 3,0004,000 taka per month for medical
treatment. A survey by Action Aid, an international
development organisation, reported that about 55 percent of
Rana Plaza survivors are still unemployed, many due to
physical inability, trauma or a lack of suitable jobs.
Contrary to Bangladesh government claims that it would
increase the number of factory inspections, only 1,200 plants
have been investigated. Factories owned by sub-contractors
will not be examined (see: Bangladesh garment workers
still face dangerous conditions).
Workers, however, are paying the price for the safety
investigations with hundreds of job losses. About 200 small-
and medium-level factories have been shut down because
they lacked proper safety measures. According to TIB, one-
fifth of the apparel workers now face the risk of losing their
jobs.
In December 2013, the Awami League government agreed to
a $68 minimum monthly wage, one of the lowest in the world
and comparable to rates in Vietnam, India, Pakistan and Sri
Lanka. The increase was far short of workers demand for
$104 per month.
Last month, TIB reported that while 95 percent of factories
implemented the new wage levels, the increase was
accompanied by a ruthless productivity drive. Most compliant
factories are putting 60 percent additional production targets
on workers, terminating workers at helper level without any
legal recourse, harassing workers engaged in collective
bargaining and union activity, and dismissing workers, it
reported. Ninety percent of sub-contracting companies were
not paying according to Bangladesh wage board regulations,
it noted.
TIB also said the peak employer lobby group, the Bangladesh
Garment Manufactures & Exporters Association (BGMEA),
which has considerable political influence in Bangladesh, has
been able to increase the legal overtime period by four hours
and delay implementation of new fire-safety regulations.
A recent HRW report entitled, Whoever Raises their Head
Suffers the Most, detailed on-going abuse in the garment
industry. Based on interviews with more than 160 workers
from 44 factories, it stated that workers are forced to do
overtime and denied paid maternity leave, while employers
fail to pay wages and bonuses on time or in full.
HRW cited several incidents where companies used brute
force to prevent the establishment of trade unions. Only 10
percent of the garment factories allow unions. HRW called on
the Bangladesh government and employers to allow union
coverage.
An opinion piece by US Ambassador to Bangladesh Marcia
Bernicat, published on BDNews24 in February, stated: We
encourage the government to ensure these unions members
are able to exercise their legal right to collectively bargain,
free from the fear that they will be fired or harassed, and that
illegal retaliation will be dealt with quickly.
While many Bangladeshi companies regard the trade unions
as barriers to further labour exploitation, Western
governments and international think tanks want unions
established, not out of concern for workers rights but as an
industrial police force to prevent the eruption of independent
political struggles against the government, employers and the
profit system itself.
Export earnings for the Bangladesh apparel industry totalled
$24.5 billion in 201314 financial year, constituting 80 percent
of the countrys total exports. About 60 percent of garment
exports go to Europe and 23 percent to the US. As the profit-
hungry retailers increasingly demand lower-cost products,
garment manufacturers will step up their exploitation of
Bangladeshi workers, guaranteeing that industrial disasters
like the Rana Plaza collapse will continue.