Cheap clothes, cheaper lives?

A large eight story building that houses several garment factories in Bangladesh collapsed last Wednesday, leaving at least 300 people dead, and more than a thousand injured, with the final death toll yet to be told. Mohammad Asaduzzaman, head of the area's police station, said factory owners from the building, who produce clothing for western brands, ignored a warning not to allow their workers into the building after a crack was detected in the building's structure on Tuesday.

"It is dreadful that leading brands and governments continue to allow garment workers to die or suffer terrible disabling injuries in unsafe factories making clothes for Western nations' shoppers," Laia Blanch of the U.K. anti-poverty charity War on Want said in a statement. Commenting on the inevitable ties to western retailers in the disaster, Naomi Klein recently tweeted: "More industrial mass murder disguised as development".

The anti-poverty charity War on Want picketing Primark which 

it says is ignoring the rise in basic living costs in the 

Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, leaving workers worse off 

than they were two years ago.

Sam Maher, of Labour Behind the Label, said: "It's unbelievable that brands still refuse to sign a binding agreement with unions and labour groups to stop these unsafe working conditions from existing. Tragedy after tragedy shows that corporate-controlled monitoring has failed to protect workers' lives."

The object of Western desire - the Primark Minnie Mouse Onesie

In fairness to Primark and other retailers mentioned in these reports is this their problem? You have corrupt and incompetent government and a deeply engrained culture of clientalism with local elites ripping off and controlling their own people. In Dhaka as in Cairo, Karachi, Lagos and everywhere in the Developing World there are Gerry built unsafe buildings built over many years with inadequate / corrupt inspections and poor construction practice and complete lack of effective regulation. There is a whole kickback culture which any Corruption and Transparency Index will document. So how far do we expect Primark or any other company to go in re-engineering the reality and governance of a sovereign Nation?

In terms of Bangladesh's development they would be living in greater squalor if they didn't have wages and export earnings so the problem isn't simple and really it is primarily up to sovereign nations to place an adequate value on the lives of their citizens. I'm sure you can find much else appalling in child mortality, healthcare, power transmission and transport safety (2 killed EVERY DAY on Bombay's commuter railways), sanitation, justice and prisons, food standards, pesticides, etc; and whilst buyers can set standards and encourage good practice there are limits?

The collapse is the latest in a series of factory disasters in Bangladesh tied to western brands including a massive blaze which broke out in the Tazreen factory in November, killing 112 workers. Clothes made for Disney, Wal-Mart and other western labels were found at that factory.

There is no doubt a dark underworld to the clothing and other industries in these countries involving child labour and unsafe practices. The Bangladeshi government says it wants to improve conditions but worries about the knock-on consequences for the millions who now depend on the industry for jobs. "The biggest human right is the right for survival," said commerce minister Ghulam Mohammed Quader in an interview before the latest disaster. That sounds hollow now, as hundreds of Bangladeshi families grieve. After this catastrophe, there is a lot more reflection going on over the real cost of cheap clothes. As one Bangladeshi union organiser said: "You buy one get one free - but it's not really free."

Unfortunately, endemic corruption from top to bottom means that even if the western companies paid more, the workers would see little of it. The middlemen are the criminals. To simply stop producing garments would subject millions to penury, but surely there's more the western companies can do: perhaps pay the workers directly into their bank accounts (which they don’t have?), or send over western observers to manage. The question for us as Western consumers is can we make a difference and are we willing to pay the cost?