Almost exactly 100 years ago, one of the worst industrial disasters in American history took place. 146 low-wage workers, mostly immigrant women, lost their lives at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City. Most had jumped to their own deaths as a result of blocked and locked exits (a common practice at the time, ostensibly to prevent petty theft and workers leaving early).
A virtually identical fire in Bangladesh claimed between 29 and 100 lives (a final death toll has not been confirmed) and injured hundreds more on December 14th. It also claimed the lives of poor people, mostly women, working for staggeringly low wages. Early reports indicate the carnage is also a result of locked fire exits in a multi-storey complex– forcing anguished, trapped people to leap to their own deaths.
They were making clothing for the largest US clothing company, The Gap, which also owns such popular brands as Old Navy and Banana Republic. This time, however, it wasn’t really considered news.
If anything good came out of the Triangle Fire, it was how quickly public outrage and commentary mobilized the creation of new unions and safety regulations for so-called “sweatshops” in the US. But the people who make clothing for the US market now will not receive anything like this level of interest as the American press has all but ignored this event and others like it in the past year.
In other words, where is the outrage?
Unlike our dutiful corporate media, the press in the UK has at least informed its citizens about the disaster and the issues around it. Earlier in the same month, 4 protesters were killed when police opened fire on a group trying to ensure that the new minimum wage (Aprox. $45 dollars US per month) would actually be paid to them instead of the previous $27.00.
What did the employees of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company make? Roughly the same wages.
Not adjusted for inflation, the SAME $45 per month, 100 years ago. Even factoring in the differences in the economies, the Triangle workers were far better off. The people who make our clothing in Bangladesh earn so little they often have trouble getting enough caloric intake to keep working without passing out from exhaustion.
The factory is owned by this man, AK Azad, CEO of the Hameem Group (getting some calories from his employees at this party):
Their FaceBook page remains unsullied by comments from fed-up Americans (or anyone else, for that matter), save mine. Mr. Azad is also head of the Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce. Imagine the scandal if this was an American factory and the owner was head of our US Chamber of Commerce.
But it IS still essentially an American factory, making clothing strictly for the American market. It is a factory for The Gap, America’s largest clothing manufacturer. With virtually no commentary stateside, The Gap quietly issued a statement and a joint letter (with JC Penny and Van Heusen) urging the Hameem Group to do better.
If there is any response to this letter, I doubt we will hear about it in the mainstream press. Mr. Azad’s place in the global economy is secure, his status unthreatened as a champion of the expanding global place of Bangladesh as a source for American clothing manufacture.
He still has his job, and The Gap suffers no apparent losses from the preventable deaths of dozens of the poorest-paid, most vulnerable people on the planet.
Americans do care about these issues, and famously rallied around the same causes after Kathy Lee Gifford made the case for chage in the 90’s. Even more recently, Nike sports equipment was banned from The University of Wisconsin over student revulsion over their labor practices in Latin America. But it is difficult to generate outrage when very little of the information gets to American consumers. Even this article in The New York Times, published the day after the disaster, remains unupdated as to the US companies involved.
And there are no editorials. Yet. Hopefully this will change.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Michael ODonnell. Michael ODonnell said: RT @ConservaTaint: American Press Ignores Deadly Bangladeshi Factory Fire; The Gap Brand Remains Unscathed: http://t.co/Qve9OZS @gap @ja … […]
I wonder if there were any articles in Bangladeshi newspapers about the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire. I doubt they would have bothered, and why should they? We learned from our errors and now our workplaces are much safer as a result.
Every developing country that is benefiting from globalization will experience similar growing pains as they learn to support a new booming workforce. Just look at India.
What happened in Bangladesh is unfortunate, but they will hopefully learn from it.
I would think that if they were making clothing exclusively for the Bangladeshi market, they would have some sense of responsibility.
People being paid next to nothing trapped in a building by greedy bosses and burned alive as a result isn’t “growing pain”, it’s CRIME. I’d suggest reading Naomi Klein’s “No Logo” and “Shock Doctrine” if you want to get up to speed on the benefits of globalization. Right now you can get shot asking for $45 a month… China isn’t much better, and only the rich are benefiting.
India has a middle class developing because of skilled jobs, not sweatshops. People in India that do the same work are in almost as bad a situation… so to put India up because it’s economy is growing (Bangladesh’s is too BTW) is pretty silly unless you live under the illusion that working in a sweatshop there is somehow a good job now.
Admittedly it’s not just “growing pains” but even if the doors weren’t blocked, they would still be paid those same wages. Also, you raise the labor price, you raise the price of the final good which would mean less people buy the good and some of these workers may have NO job. This is why, as a country develops, old industries start to leave and new industries enter (if they’ve done it right). We’ve been using India as an example, so I’ll stick with it. India was hugely into textiles, and it still is, but because of the development there has been a growing number of educated workers who demanded higher paying jobs. Textiles has been falling to the wayside as relatively low skilled IT jobs come. Without the textile industry it is unlikely that education would have been so widespread (GDP would have been lower, attracting less investment and its base education, as well as less expendable income to finance the childrens education). Without this education, there would most definitely not be IT jobs. It sucks but if the wages were to automatically increase, sure they’d be paid more for a few months but then the company would just move locations and there would be no jobs, no money and food to sacrifice in order to get a bit of education, and ending in stagnated development. The author mentioned the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, but failed to mention that there is barely a textile industry here BECAUSE we increased the wages. Luckily, we were using educational resources (as a whole nation) and we could invest in and work in new industries.
I’m more concerned with the unintended outcomes of globalization than with this… the idea that sweatshop labor can help so-called “third-world” countries grow better economies may have some truth, but it would seem abusive policies toward workers (as well as anyone who tries to organize them or speak on their behalf) are NOT a requirement. My point here is not to talk so much about these issues as the fact that the US consumer isn’t given the choice to have an opinion if the US press doesn’t provide the basic information. If poorer countries are going to get in on this “opportunity” of providing the cheapest labor ever, it would seem like a perfect time to have some sort of universal minimum wage and safety requirements. (Even The GAP agrees with the second part, if you believe the letter they sent the factory owners)
Clothing was produced in the US for decades (look for the Union Label!!) after the Triangle Fire, and US workers had the highest prosperity in the world up until the 70’s and 80’s when sending jobs overseas became the norm. So raising wages had no immediate impact, and it certainly wouldn’t here. Paying a few more cents per items selling for over $30 US will only slightly dent Gap’s profits, and if they are smart marketers (and they are) they will reap even more profits by being seen as corporate “good guys.”
It’s telling that the new minimum wage in Bangladesh is almost DOUBLE that of the old. If what you were saying about staying competitive to keep jobs were true there, they couldn’t AFFORD and increase that size. But of course they can, because they are essentially paying nothing at all. It’s a question of priorities… it doesn’t seem like these worker have to live in sub-human conditions to keep American corporations profitable (and this year was a record for US corporate profits).
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