Bangladesh: Why should we care?

Last week I spent the afternoon with seventh and eighth graders at Pinehurst Alternative School. I was invited, along with the Executive Director of the Washington Fair Trade Coalition to talk to the youth about the End Death Traps Tour we coordinated last month. For those of you who missed the article, Seattle was privileged to be one of the 12 cities visited by former garment workers and activists Sumi Abedin and Kalpona Akter.


Sumi is a survivor from the Tazrene Fashion’s factory fire that killed 112 last November. Kalpona is a long time labor activist and the Director of the Center for Bangladeshi Worker’s rights. You might have seen her picture in the New York Times standing in the burnt out remnants of the factory and holding up the fade glory label jacket as proof that Walmart clothing was produced there (they denied this initially). We shared some video footage of the forum that took place at the University of Washington last month where Kalpona talked about the fire and also about the labor challenges in Bangladesh.

Why should we care about what happens in Bangladesh? We asked the students to take a moment to look at the labels on their clothing. Just within one classroom there were labels from Vietnam, Honduras, China, Indonesia, and yes Bangladesh. Bangladesh is second only to China for the amount of clothing it produces for export. In the world we live in, globalization is the norm. We are a part of a supply chain that links us together with a wide variety of exporting countries. The question now becomes are we responsible for each link of the chain or just what happens in this country?

Since 2006, over 600 people have been killed in factory fires in Bangladesh. That number does not include the body count from the fire that happened just hours ago (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/world/asia/new-fatal-fire-at-bangladesh-clothes-maker.html?_r=2& ) or the more than 1,000 people who were killed in the building collapse two weeks ago. At the end of our presentation, one of the seventh graders raised her hand to say that while she had learned all this information before, seeing Kalpona speak gave those numbers a face. I hope you will take a moment to think about the people behind the numbers, because when you do, I think you will come to the same conclusion that those seventh and eighth graders did…that yes, we are responsible.

There are many things in life that we can’t change, but these fires are preventable. People do not need to die in order to make our clothes. Moreover they don’t need to work in poverty either. The minimum wage in Bangladesh is $37 per month, which works out to roughly 18cents per hour. Now there is a difference in the cost of living, but even still most Bangladeshi’s would need double that to survive. How much do jeans at the Gap cost? Clearly there is money in the industry that is not trickling down to either the garment workers or towards building safety standards. We, as consumers have the power to advocate for change. Kalpona and Sumi were very clear in stating that they do not want us to boycott Bangladeshi clothing because even poverty wage jobs are better than no jobs at all. But there is one thing we can do. We can call for Gap, Walmart, and all the other major corporations to sign the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement.

United Students Against Sweatshops and other organizations have already begun pressuring the Gap locally in Seattle with the support of many important community allies. They will be continuing throughout the summer, just as we will be continuing to work on Walmart. Next week Walmart associates from around the country will be caravanning to Bentonville for Walmart’s annual shareholder’s meeting. To follow their efforts check out the Making Change at Walmart facebook page. Also to find out more about what USAS is up to check out http://gapdeathtraps.com to learn about our national efforts.