Do you have blood on your clothes?

myfist0

Join Date 01/2010

+319

Do you have blood on your clothes?

Building Collapse in Bangladesh Leaves Scores Dead

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Yet another great example of our corporations outsourcing to take advantage of slave labour and lack of regulation.

This latest fatal accident, coming five months after a fire at the Tazreen Fashions factory killed at least 112 garment workers, is likely to again raise questions about work conditions in Bangladesh: workers told Bangladeshi news outlets that supervisors had ordered them to attend work on Wednesday, even though cracks were discovered in the building on Tuesday.

Bangladesh’s garment industry has grown rapidly during the last decade, particularly as rising wages in China have pushed many global clothing brands to look for lower costs elsewhere. Bangladesh has the lowest labor costs in the world, with minimum wage in the garment industry set at roughly $37 a month. Retailers and brands including Walmart, H&M, Sears, Gap, Tommy Hilfiger and many others have outsourced the production of billions of dollars of clothes there.

But critics have blamed the Bangladeshi government, factory owners and global brands for doing too little to protect workers with safe working conditions or to pay them a livable wage. Labor unions are almost nonexistent inside garment factories, and a labor organizer, Aminul Islam, was tortured and murdered last year. His death remains unsolved.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/world/asia/bangladesh-building-collapse.html

Even if the peasants rally for better regulations and wages, how much you wanna bet these corps will just move their operations to the next 3rd world country.

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Seleuceia

Join Date 01/2008

+240

Quoting DrJBHL,

reply 16

They chose not to call an inspector urgently.

To be fair, I wouldn't assume calling a government inspector would amount to much....corruption is rampant in these countries and often "inspectors" or government officials turn blind eyes to such issues...the workers surely know this, and probably are aware of what happened to the "labor leader"...

Additionally, I'm sure that any worker who didn't go would be relieved of their work and the another worker would be found in a heartbeat....

It's easy for us to stick in our own values and perspective, but those are unfortunately not very relevant to this situation....those workers probably had a choice like this: go to work and take some chance of a building collapsing on you, or don't go to work and guarantee you will be scrounging for another job...these people don't have the luxury to sit around without a job for a few days, or they (or their families) starve or face other comparable consequences...to us, the chance of dying due to "building collapse" is scary, but to them the guarantee of being unemployed is about just as damning...

What they are going through is not a whole lot different than what the US was going through 100 years ago...it's really really shitty, and it really really sucks...the single most important thing I got from this article is this line:

Bangladesh’s garment industry has grown rapidly during the last decade, particularly as rising wages in China have pushed many global clothing brands to look for lower costs elsewhere.

China has rising wages...china is starting to get out of the shit hole...and some day, I believe so will Bangladesh...I'm no economic expert so I can only speculate on what will help Bangladesh get out of the shitter faster, but what I do know is that it will happen, just as it happened to us and just as it is happening to china...we can blame everyone under the sun for these terrible conditions in Bangladesh, but at the end of the day we have to realize that it took us decades to solve this problem, to form labor unions and fight corruption and raise standards and set regulations...

We should realize by now that the pains of industrialization are inevitable and that more than anything else, situations like these need time to improve, lots of time, and it's no one person or entity that bears sole responsibility for changing that timeline...

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Quoting tazgecko,

reply 23

Quoting myfist0, reply 21Sorry, I have to disagree. These companies use these manufactures for the sole reason of cheapest labour at any cost, without regard to workers rights or safety and the lack of regulations to protect their environment. Like I already stated, once these workers get organised, these companies will just move to where they are not. I am quite sure a lot of these corporations would all be happy using slave labour in chains if they could get away with it.

That's where we have to differ in opinion.

They don't have to have regard to workers rights, safety or regulations, it's another country and that responsibility lays on the bodies in that country. Until our governments put in the regulations for importing goods from unsafe cheap labour, they don't have to put in any regard. The responsible parties are on the other end of production ...

No, they are not on the other end of production. And its only because of this view, that the only responsibility of company is to make as much money as possible no matter what, why we have to deal with ever growing state regulation. If the companies realized they have actually certain moral obligations beyond that, there would be basically no need for any other "responsible parties" beyond the companies themselves. And there would be no need for a leftie shit anymore

It is not an ideal world, i know...

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DrJBHL

Join Date 04/2002

+4190

Quoting Seleuceia,

reply 26

It's easy for us to stick in our own values and perspective

That's what the OP is about, though...isn't it. "Blood on your clothes". His/her values.

Quoting Seleuceia,

reply 26

You believe. You also generalize. Maybe correctly, maybe not.

However one fact remains: They didn't and the building collapsed.

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tazgecko

Join Date 05/2008

+177

Quoting Timmaigh,

reply 27

If the companies realized they have actually certain moral obligations beyond that, there would be basically no need for any other "responsible parties" beyond the companies themselves. And there would be no need for a leftie shit anymore

It would be nice if companies have morals, but they are sociopaths by nature.

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Quoting DrJBHL,

reply 16

Maybe the workers who saw cracks in the building had the responsibility of keeping themselves and their fellow workers out of the building NO MATTER WHAT and calling a government inspector to get there urgently? No wages (or lack of them or their relative worth) are worth anyone's life. They know that. They chose not to call an inspector urgently.

sorry, but that is just not true.

Quoting Times Of India,

With deep cracks visible in the walls, police had ordered a Bangladesh garment building evacuated the day before its deadly collapse, but the factories flouted the order and kept more than 2,000 people working, officials said Thursday.

...

After the cracks were reported Tuesday, managers of a local bank that also had an office in the building evacuated their workers. The garment factories, though, kept working, ignoring the instructions of the local industrial police, said Mostafizur Rahman, a director of that paramilitary police force.

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association had also asked the factories to suspend work starting Wednesday morning, hours before the collapse.

...

Abdur Rahim, an employee who worked on the fifth floor, said a factory manager gave assurances that the cracks in the building were no cause for concern, so employees went inside.

...

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/Death-toll-in-Bangladesh-building-collapse-at-194-many-still-trapped/articleshow/19724710.cms

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DrJBHL

Join Date 04/2002

+4190

Quoting moshi,

reply 30

Abdur Rahim, an employee who worked on the fifth floor, said a factory manager gave assurances

Not a building inspector though, right? Thanks for finding that quote. For me, that says it all.

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Quoting DrJBHL,

reply 31

Not a building inspector though, right?

ok, once again:

Quoting Times Of India,

police had ordered a Bangladesh garment building evacuated the day before its deadly collapse

ignoring the instructions of the local industrial police

of course police gives such orders to the owners, not to each individual worker.

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DrJBHL

Join Date 04/2002

+4190

Then they're culpable, and the Police might be as well since they did not notify the workers by putting up a police line at the building to prevent entry, and getting anyone who might be in there, out.

The workers should have demanded to have the building inspected and not sufficed with some company flunky's word for it...after all, whose lives are at stake? You'd think where one's life is at stake, one would be a bit more proactive, skittish and responsible. You might also ask why such an order was also not published in the papers...or on other media.

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You know, when you are poor life doesn't give you a lot of choices. You work for shit pay in dangerous conditions, or you starve and your family starves. The building is crumbling, you decide not to work...you are fired and you starve or on the street. People act like there are infinite possibilities for people, "don't like your job? quit!". For most people, it's "don't like your job? tough shit". I live in America, so I know I can never really understand the level of poverty many people of the world suffer from, but I grew up poor and I work with people who are often homeless. The same people who would blame the workers for these disasters by saying they should have refused to work there or demanded safer working conditions to prevent this tragedy probably also have a political view that fights against labor unions, business regulations, and minimum wage.

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Quoting DrJBHL,

reply 33

The workers should have demanded to have the building inspected

this is what they did when the cracks were discovered on tuesday.

and the building was inspected.

and police odered the owners to evacuate the building.

but the owners did not follow these orders and lied to their workers about the result of the inspection.

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DrJBHL

Join Date 04/2002

+4190

Quoting moshi,

reply 35

Quoting DrJBHL, reply 33The workers should have demanded to have the building inspected

this is what they did when the cracks were discovered on tuesday.

and the building was inspected.

and police odered the owners to evacuate the building.

but the owners did not follow these orders and lied to their workers about the result of the inspection.

See response #31,#33.

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Jafo

Join Date 03/2001

+1839

Quoting moshi,

reply 35

this is what they did when the cracks were discovered on tuesday.

and the building was inspected.

and police odered the owners to evacuate the building.

but the owners did not follow these orders and lied to their workers about the result of the inspection.

Clearly a case of criminal negligence. At minimum reckless endangerment.

I remember once noticing a 230mm solid brick partywall in a new construction thinking.....'they were brave going full-height without subsequent framing walls adjacent...and relying on what was nothing more than a few 4x2 props shot into the slab'.

I'd been in the game long enough to know when they were pushing the boundaries of good practice.....should have done 'something'...as next day the wind picked up a tad....and splatted 2 workers. Probably appropriate as they were likely the ones who 'got it wrong'.

Then there was the guys who were jacking up a house for reblocking....went too far without backup support...house flopped to the side....exit 2 more.

Bad practice is rife [and definitely not just 'some-other-country']. But like anything...if you just kill yourself then you deserve it...but if you kill others it's supposed to be illegal.

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Kantok

Join Date 10/2007

+67

Quoting tazgecko,

reply 29

It would be nice if companies have morals, but they are sociopaths by nature.

"Companies are sociopaths by nature" is vapid nonsense.

Never mind the fact that it's a wild generalization, but organizations can't have morals. People have morals. Organizations are groups of people with individual morality. Just like some non-profits are good, because their leadership has good morals and actually believes in a cause and some are scams because their leadership are scumbags and just want to make a buck off of people's suffering some corporations are well run and some aren't. Their behavior is influenced by the individual morality of their leadership. It the same thing with governments; some are generally good and some are extremely evil but that good or evil nature comes from individuals and individual morality.

Demonizing corporations is not just silly, it's a cop out argument. It's the easy answer that lets people have their scapegoat during disasters without actually having to confront the underlying problems and the bad parts of human nature. It's damaging to discourse and to solving the problem because people take it for truth while 1) ignoring that the exceptional quality of life standards in much of the world (standards which are slowly spreading to less developed countries) are brought on by those generalized evil corporations and their evil desire for profit and 2) failing to address the real problems, which tend to center around a complete lack of accountability for the individuals who come up with and execute the decisions that lead to disasters such as this one.

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Kantok

Join Date 10/2007

+67

Double post.

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StevenAus22

Join Date 06/2010

+110

Join the Dark Side... and Receive a Free Toaster Oven! <grin>

Oh, got caught again replying to page 1 and there being another page(s)!

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Quoting Kantok,

reply 38

"Companies are sociopaths by nature" is vapid nonsense.

Nonsense

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DrJBHL

Join Date 04/2002

+4190

The DSM IV is meant to be diagnostic criteria for humans. Not budgies, cats or companies.

Using criteria meant for people to animals, etc. is termed anthropomorphism and isn't logically applicable.

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Quoting myfist0,

reply 41

Quoting Kantok, reply 38"Companies are sociopaths by nature" is vapid nonsense.

Nonsense

Maybe not all companies, but the large corporations get large for a reason.

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Maybe not all companies, but the large corporations get large for a reason

editing posts reallly sucks now

Crated 2 more damned post just trying to add a line to the 1st

WTF

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Quoting myfist0,

reply 44

Maybe not all companies, but the large corporations get large for a reason.

I suppose a corporation is a person only when someone needs to go to jail? Making a peice of paper a person is the nonsense

editing posts reallly sucks now

Crated 2 more damned post just trying to add a line to the 1st

WTF

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WebGizmos

Join Date 09/2003

+735

Watch this video to see just how corporations control you...or at least try to. http://www.linktv.org/programs/shadows-of-liberty

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Unfortunately, laws and regulations isn't always an easy fix to these problems. Press ganging (the act of kidnapping people to work on ships) was common practice long ago, even when it was rendered illegal, until the invention and practical application of the steam powered ship. Until then, it was more practical to nab people to work on ships (there was an insatiable demand for workers).

So these bad practices will likely end up continuing until the underlying problem is addressed. At the moment, it sounds like there are people desperate enough in the world that they are forced to put up with these problems. That, and it seems to be cheaper for companies to use out of country workers to produce goods, in countries that lack laws and regulations to prevent these problems.

The good news is, it seems that these problems seem to fix themselves over time. China for instance, no longer appears to be so desperate for work. The problem is how long does it take to get there, and how much blood will be spilled.

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2415

Quoting myfist0,

reply 14

You do realize that forced means

compelled by force or necessity : involuntary

: violence, compulsion, or constraint exerted upon or against a person or thing

I didn't realize corporations had it so tough ...

My conscience dictates I do not consume these products. The purpose of the thread was to inform those who do consume such products, not argue the specific wording of my more than obvious bias.

EDIT: Still chuckling a bit that people are free to work there and corporations are forced to move there. Although a somewhat gallows laughter.

Ok, I'll bite. What do you do for a living?

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Quoting Frogboy,

reply 48

Ok, I'll bite. What do you do for a living?

Not relevant. And nobodies business but my own.

also updated the OP with a couple videos

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Frogboy

Join Date 03/2001

+2415

Quoting myfist0,

reply 49

Quoting Frogboy, reply 48Ok, I'll bite. What do you do for a living?

Not relevant. And nobodies business but my own.

It's no one's business but you are essentially advocating positions that make no sense in modern reality.

If you want to "hate" corporations, that's your business. But the fact is, without them, we would still be living a 18th century lifestyle.

It is only thanks to corporations and globalization that we have the luxury of discussing this topic on our personal computing devices via the Internet.

As a reminder:

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