Collapse of an eight story commercial building, Rana Plaza was another horrific incident that occurred on 24th April 2013 in Savar; Bangladesh. It was the third major industrial incident in five months. Time and again we observer this kind of terrible incidents, while it's still fresh in mind, there is a desperate need to change the usual game.
Booming garment industry is one of the growing business sectors in Bangladesh and millions of people particularly women are employed to make cloths, which eventually end up in the foreign high street clothing stores like Next, H&M, Matalan, Primark, Bonmarche or even Marks & Spencer. I feel extremely proud when I buy a shirt or trouser from one the above mentioned shops where it says ‘Made in Bangladesh’, on the other hand, I equally get a deep feeling of guilt if the garment that I wore was made from blood, sweat and tears of those poor women and in many cases by children. Every time I tell myself it is reciprocal where both parties need each other as producers and buyers - thinking millions of people have got jobs, finally they will come out of the poverty trap at some point and their generations would likely to follow suit.
However, the progress has been one sided. Corruption, ignorance and greed have chronically failed those people at the bottom who should be rewarded in the first place. I will still proudly buy 'Made in Bangladesh' garments but I strongly demand to give exemplary punishment even though the perpetrators are the supporters of the ruling political party, punish those who violate building construction codes and make occupational safety and health a top priority.
Minimum [variable] wage of $9.50 a week, long working hours, bad working conditions, [complete] disregard to occupational health and safety and environmental issues have crippled the garment industry. Garment workers are frequently dying. It wasn't too long ago in the same suburb a fire broke out in another factory, surprisingly enough; emergency exit was locked down, as a result 112 people died as they were trapped inside. People have observed only lip-service from the successive Bangladeshi governments but the fundamental issues were never resolved.
New garment factories are opening every year but health and safety at work, social responsibilities and environmental issues still remain elusive. Many cases Health and Safety at work are mostly common sense, which goes hand in hand with common safety (common sense, common safety) to protect people at work from serious threats. People need to imply simple common sense whether the fire exit should be locked down, using flammable sprays in the clothing warehouse or finding a crack on the wall. In light of the evidence, garment factory owners have drastically failed to prevent death, injury and illness for their own workers.
Corporate Social Responsibility [CSR] or the Corporate Conscience has also perceived as window dressing. Most of the fore mentioned companies have their corporate self-regulations [self-regulatory mechanism to monitor and measure the CSR performances] integrated within their CSR policies. They have responsibility to carry out [reasonably vigorous] audits if their supplies are coming from ethical and moral sourcing. Repeated ignorance has no place when people's lives at stake. Garments owners, local and foreign buyers have their mutual benefits in this matter if the whole supply chains become more transparent and non-discriminatory to the factory workers.
Finally, garment industry is a treasure in Bangladesh and we should not let a few badly behaved factory owners and bad working conditions giving the whole industry a bad name. Time has come to put the house in order.
