The Bangladesh garment industry has in recent years been affected by a number of terrible accidents, most notoriously the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in April 2013, resulting in the death of over 1,100 workers with many more injured. The Rana Plaza collapse has led to outrage across the globe concerning the abysmal safety and working conditions, the extremely low wages and the long working hours in the Bangladeshi garment factories. It also refueled the debate on the responsibilities of the various actors involved.
The Bangladeshi state is under accusation for its failure to enforce the law, inspect factories and address abuses, for the low minimum wage, and for the excessive influence of economic interests over politics. Bangladeshi factory owners are accused of greed, indifference and ignorance. The major global clothing brands and retailers are also accused of greed, of pushing for ever lower prices from their suppliers without considering the social and safety consequences, and of being unwilling or unable to enforce labour standards in their supply chain. And, finally, (Western) consumers are accused of ignoring the suffering of the workers that make their clothes and of preferring low prices over global social justice. All these accusations are to a large extent true. And they are not new nor specific to the Bangladeshi garment industry. As the latest ILO’s World of Work report shows, exploitation of workers, working poverty and unsafe working conditions – although some improvement can be observed – are still widespread in many developing countries.
What is new in Bangladesh is that the outrage following the Rana Plaza catastrophe has not simply died out and disappeared, as happened so often in the past. It has resulted in a series of initiatives aimed at compensating the victims and improving the safety and working conditions in the sector. They include, among others, legislative changes, a rise of the minimum wage, and the setting up of new trade unions. New is also that global brands and retailers have been thoroughly implicated in the response to the disaster. Those that had an involvement with Rana Plaza are expected to pay into a compensation funds for the workers and families affected. Also, under the auspices of the International Labour Organisation, the Accord on Fire and Building Safety was developed, an agreement that aims to make factories in Bangladesh safer, including independent safety inspections and public reporting of their results. The Accord has been signed by some 150 global brands and retailers who agree to improve fire and building safety in Bangladesh, targeting in particular their supplier companies. A similar agreement (the Initiative) was signed by a number of US brands and retailers.
It is encouraging that these initiatives have been taken and that serious and innovative efforts are made to prevent more Bangladeshi factories from collapsing or going up in flames. It is promising to see that, apart from all the suffering, the deplorable Rana Plaza drama has had at least some positive effects. It is equally promising that the major global players in the industry are very explicitly drawn in. But will these efforts indeed lead to a substantial improvement in the situation of Bangladeshi workers?
One question here is the scope and effectiveness of the post-Rana Plaza initiatives themselves. Here some skepticism is due. Reports from NGOs like Human Rights Watch and Clean Clothes Campaign show that one and a half years after the collapse many victims still await compensation and that many global brands and retailers have not made their contribution to the compensation fund. Also, the application of the law remains problematic and trade union freedom is still under pressure. Where the Accord and the Initiative are concerned, inspections have covered only a small part of the garment companies and focus largely on building and fire safety, without touching upon wages, working hours, etc. And where these inspection have resulted in factory closures, workers generally have not been offered new jobs or received compensation.
Therapeutic theatre counselling is one of the rehabilitation approaches being used for the survivors of the Rana Plaza building collapse. (© ILO)
Hence, with some noticeable exceptions, the initiatives are subject to severe limitations both in scope and in implementation. For now, they seem to have resulted in little improvement in the lives of the garment workers and their families, and exploitation continues largely as before the collapse. It is no surprise, then, that the anniversary of the collapse was marked by massive protests demanding real compensation for the victims and real improvements in safety, wages, working conditions and workers’ rights, protests that continue until today. If the government, the global brands and retailers want to salvage some of their credibility they should urgently respond to these protests by realizing their initial promises and expanding them into a more comprehensive and effective strategy.
And then there is the larger question if the initiatives taken following Rana Plaza, even if their implementation improves, do or do not have the potential to improve the position of Bangladeshi workers in the long run. The circumstances in the Bangladeshi garment industry are to an important extent the result of the development model of Bangladesh and its place in the global organisation of trade and production. With its export-based growth model it is very dependent on developments on the free trade-driven world market and on the behaviour of investors and clients. It is at the bottom of the garment supply chain, an extremely competitive, cost-driven industry.
The global brands and retailers are only interested in Bangladesh-based suppliers because they can get away with ever-lower prices. These low prices are the key to the abuse and lack of safety in the Bangladeshi factories. Indeed, if the recent attempts to improve the situation in local companies will lead to a substantial rise in costs, the global brands and suppliers will most likely move to cheaper alternatives. They are already increasingly sourcing from suppliers in countries like Myanmar and several of the Sub-Saharan African countries to this effect. As long as they can they will roam the globe for the cheapest suppliers without any serious consideration for the social effects of their behaviour, the problems that occur in Bangladesh will simply be relocated to another poor country. And Bangladeshi workers and their families will be without jobs and income.
Hence, it is time that Rana Plaza is taken as a starting point for a renewed debate on how global trade and production can be regulated to promote decent work also at the lower end of global supply chains. The aftermath of Rana Plaza clearly shows that self-regulation by private companies through corporate social responsibility will not do the job, and neither will single governments or consumers. Rather, it points to the need to (re-)consider more comprehensive and effective multilateral approaches to take basic labour standards and minimum working conditions out of global competition, for example through social clauses in general or sectoral WTO agreements.
The strong post-Rana Plaza commitment of the international community to improving global labour standards and working conditions should be used to discuss such alternatives that go beyond the present, often not very effective, efforts to remedy the problems in Bangladesh and beyond.
This column is part of the “After Rana Plaza” project jointly run with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Dhaka Office.
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