Rana Plaza: 1,138 Deaths and 2 Years Later, Companies Still Dodging Paying Up

This Friday will mark the second anniversary of the Rana Plaza mass murder of 1,138 garment workers. I use the word “murder” because the collapse of the eight-story building that housed sweatshop garment factories wasn’t some astonishing surprise. It happened because international garment companies–like Benetton, Primark, Matalan, and Mango –exploited people for huge profits, not caring a whit about their conditions in slave-like conditions half way around the globe; those companies happily pocketed billions of dollars in profits and signed deals year after year with sleazy contractors who operated unsafe, dangerous factories.

After a huge outcry following the collapse, an accord was signed between labor rights advocates, international union representatives and NGOs, on the one hand, and garment companies, on the other hand, calling for payments by the companies to upgrade safety and set up a monitoring scheme to try to prevent future Rana Plaza-like mass murders.

But, even just paying a pittance apparently seems beyond the moral compass of these companies who are stiffing the accord’s budget.

To recount, on April 24th 2013, Rana Plaza collapsed, killing the 1,138 workers, injuring more than 2,400 others and leaving thousands of families devastated by both the loss of their loved ones and the loss of income that kept people barely alive; 291 of the dead were buried in a mass grave because they could not be identified.

Horrendously, workers had seen cracks in the building the day before the collapse. As the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights found:

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 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.At 8:45 a.m. the electricity went out and the factories’ five generators kicked on.  Almost immeditately the workers felt the eight-story building begin to move, and heard a loud explosion as the building collapsed, pancaking downward, killing 1,137 workers.

Eighty percent of the workers were young women, 18, 19, 20 years of age.  Their standard shift was 13 to 14 ½ 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.

Understand, if the international companies like Benetton cared, this could have been prevented. As the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights points out:

For the last 25 years, garments have been sewn across the developing world, by workers—many of them children and teenagers —— who are forced to work long hours for starvation wages, with no rights or justice, and when they return home, it is usually to a miserable hovel.  Yet, the U.S. garment industry is a powerful $350 billion operation!

In fact, just a few months earlier, in December 2012, a fire at the Tazreen garment factory in Bangladesh killed 112 workers–and subsequently documents found in the burned out factory proved that Wal-Mart suppliers operated there.

In the aftermath of the Rana collapse, the building owner and a handful of others were arrested but not a single executive of the real culprits–the big international clothing labels who operate at the top of the garment clothing food chain–have been held accountable.

All these bastards had to do was cough up a little money. The Accord had six key components:

 1.  A five year legally binding agreement between brands and trade unions to ensure a safe working environment in the Bangladeshi RMG industry
2.  An independent inspection program supported by brands in which workers and trade unions are involved
3.  Public disclosure of all factories, inspection reports and corrective action plans (CAP)
4.  A commitment by signatory brands to ensure sufficient funds are available for remediation and to maintain sourcing relationships
5. Democratically elected health and safety committees in all factories to identify and act on health and safety risks
6.  Worker empowerment through an extensive training program, complaints mechanism and right to refuse unsafe work.

But, instead, the companies are essentially starving the Accord’s mission:

About a dozen clothing companies linked to the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh – which collapsed killing more than 1,100 people – have yet to pay a penny into a fund for victims, campaigners claim.Pressure is mounting this week on the firms, the majority in Europe or the US, as next Friday marks the second anniversary of the tragedy in which 1,138 people were killed and more than 2,000 were injured. The eight-storey complex in Dhaka, which housed several clothing factories, collapsed in one of the world’s worst industrial disasters.

Amid claims and concerns of a sweatshop culture in Bangladesh – in which workers apparently had virtually no rights and health and safety was largely absent – the tragedy highlighted the human cost of cheap clothing.

While some companies linked to the factory complex, including Primark, were quick to pay millions towards compensation for victims and their families, many have yet to make any contribution.

Of particular despicable behavior is Benetton. Luciano Benetton, the company founder, is worth 2.9 billion, according to Forbes ; his son now runs the company. Benetton is skimping:

Others, such as Benetton, have confirmed their donation after two years. The Italian clothing giant announced last week it would donate $1.1 m (£736,000) towards the fund, following a previous donation of $500,000 the company made before the current fund was set up. Yet this is far short of the $5m that campaigners claimed it should pay because of its size and ability to contribute.

And it had very extensive ties there:

The company, which on the day of the tragedy denied that garment factories in the Dhaka building were suppliers to Benetton Group, has admitted that “a one-time order was completed and shipped out by one of the manufacturers involved several weeks prior to the incident”.The illegally constructed, eight-storey building collapsed last Wednesday leaving at least 382 people killed.

However, documents found in the Rana Plaza rubble and photographed by the Bangladesh Garments and Industrial Workers Federation (BGIWF) and Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity (BCWS) fand passed onto the International Labor Rights Forum, indicate Benetton had a protracted relationship with New Wave Style Limited.[emphasis added]

The international labor movement is upping the pressure on Benetton:

UNI Global Union General Secretary Philip Jennings said: “We are deeply disappointed with Benetton’s contribution. This is a token step and we appeal to them to do better. We will continue our efforts for Benetton to increase their contribution.“They have been ill-advised by their hired consultants to take the low road. This is about people’s lives and is not a time for discount policies.

“Primark, who also sourced from Rana Plaza, has paid $7.3 million in compensation but Benetton fails to see the victims as people who need the compassion and care that their brand espouses.”

In the absence of murder charges against those at the top of the garment industry chain–those billionaires like Benetton–who pocket huge profits and never pay the price for deaths of their slaves, they have to be squeezed, and squeezed hard, to at least pay this pittance in reparations.