David Von Drehle cautions against overreaction from Western consumers in the wake of the textile factory collapse:
It’s natural to look at the horror in Bangladesh and weigh a vow never to buy another t-shirt sewn in that country. But no one suffers more from a boycott than the impoverished workers for whom even an unsafe job is better than no job at all. Better to press our retailers, our fashion brands, our investors, and our governments to use their influence — their power — with foreign leaders to promote the idea that corruption is not just a moral problem; it’s bad business. Killing workers is no way to build an economy, nor will a system of bribes and spoils ever lift a nation to lasting prosperity. That’s a message even hard-hearted people can understand, and you need them to get things done.
Pope Francis has weighed in, characterizing the workforce of the collapsed Dhaka factory as “slave labor”. Disney has already banned production [NYT] of its licensed goods in the country, but that move had been planned since March and affects less than 1% of their total business. Susan Berfield notes that it’s unlikely other brands will be able to take a similar stance:
For companies that rely more heavily on Bangladesh, simply shutting down operations isn’t really an option. For one thing, where would they go? Other low-wage countries are likely to have the same kinds of problems that Bangladesh does: lax regulation, corruption, and little history of support for workers’ rights. And Bangladesh, of course, relies on these companies. Bangladesh has quietly become the world’s second-largest apparel exporter, after China. As Bloomberg News reports, textiles contribute more than 10 percent of Bangladesh’s gross domestic product and about 80 percent of the nation’s exports, mainly to the U.S. and the European Union. So these retailers have some clout—but so far haven’t chosen to exercise it altogether.
The low wages throughout Bangladesh’s garment industry are the result of trying to poach business from China:
“There is no other reason why a company would be doing business there,” [says Elizabeth Cline, the author of Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion]. “These deaths are happening because they are trying to step into the shoes of China. The cost of labor, the costs are going up in China and fashion companies are trying to maintain their margins and trying to maintain their cheap prices, so they want Bangladesh to do what China was doing. But Bangladesh can’t do that.” It’s a numbers game, says Cline, Bangladesh has around 4,000 garment factories compared to China’s 40,000. The average wage for a garment worker in China is close to $200; the average for a worker in Bangladesh is $37.
Earlier Dish on the harsh economic breakdown of garments in Bangladesh here.
(Photo: A Bangladeshi family member poses as she holds up the portrait of her missing relative, believed to be trapped in the rubble of an eight-storey building collapse in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, on May 3, 2013. The death toll from last week’s collapse of a garment factory complex in Bangladesh has passed 500 as the country’s prime minister said Western retailers had to share some of the blame for the tragedy. By Munir uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images)
The Dish 