It was so sad to see the petition industry, in the instance of SumOfUs.org, feeding off tragedy and trying to scapegoat Walmart (another duplicitous piece by Bonnie Kavoussi in Huffington Post). Perhaps the ideologues warp the truth because there's a hidden agenda of unionization of the company, which seems obvious in the petition-monger's hidden master plan); certainly SumOfUs.org didn't have the facts necessary to solicit signatures against Walmart honestly. In any case, the tragedy in Bangladesh's garment industry has brawt attention to the amazingly duplicitous arrangements that obtain among the garment factories and supply companies there. All they have to do to fire-proof their for-profit facilities is raise their prices to the companies that use their services like Walmart, the Gap, Disney, Sears, and others. The Bangladesh companies have to learn to compete with one another, and to invest in such vital expenses as fire-proofing and safety generally, and then sell this competitive advantage to the end-product retailers. The fire-trap companies need to lose out to the fire-safe competitors. But the petition-mongers not only choose the wrong tragets, but also seek to contribute to the fire-traps by demanding that retailers underwrite the expenses of companies that need fire-safety upgrades and seek such upgrades without any expense or risk financially to the fire-trap companies themselves. That procedure woud incentivize the creation of a constant flow of new fire-trap garment factories and supplier shell-companies in the Bangladesh market.
The good part of what's happened in Bangladesh is that workers are refusing to return to employment in these unsafe factories. Let the shady companies die. Let the entrepreneurs involved lose their shirts. Let the Bangladeshi govt which profits from all the garment industry (a major revenue source) now close unsafe factories, seize assets of malfeasant companies in the garment industry, and stipulate what must be done in regard to fire-safety in order for a company to continue operations. So as not to incentivize fire-trap manufacturers, let all garment factories and suppliers (for instance) pay into a govt fund and combine with it any assets seized -- in order to enforce the inspections, to train inspectors, to issue condemnations, and to license approvals of the buildings and safety procedures of the manufacturers and middle-men which qualify. The Bangladesh govt shoud not itself pay for the improvements. The companies and suppliers must learn what their responsiblities to workers are. Unsafe and fire-hazardous work conditions are the corporate responsibility of the companies and suppliers.
While the forces that will now be brawt to bear on Bangladesh's suppliers and the situation of women and men who work for them at great jeopardy, shoud now also encourage the forces of grassroots petition-signers in the West to bring the mendacious petition industry (haboured by Internet outlets who do not practice due diligence regarding their online petition-mongers) into the light of day so that in future we can trust what they say without doing a professional analysis of either their rhetoric, their own interests (each has a staff of its own that wants to self-continue, so the proft vs non-profit distinction becomes just another duplicity, unless sufficient critical voices arise in the broader petitioning community to throw the spotlight on it / them), and the lack of an ethics-backed morality of NGO rhetoric against their targets, usually companies (which aren't omniscient, as petition-mongers like SomeOfUs.com, seem to want to construe).
Two details have emerged that warmed my heart, and qualify as good news. I did not know that the apparel/garment industry of Bangladesh has nearly entirely eliminated child labour in its factories. And I did not know that workers are leaving the garment industry, or that upwards of 10,000 have clashed with the police. I don't like labour clashes with the police, nor welcome the assignment of police to such socially-negative work; but clashes amounting to this number reveal a widespread discontent with backward labour conditions, with pay / income / purchasing power, and with union service to workers. There's a huge amount of distrust involved when workers by-pass their unions to take action of the kind revealed in the article below. On the other hand, I have to assume that the unions did not covertly foment the actions mentioned, and that the actions were indeed what's called "wild cat" actions.
So without further information, it's important to conclude with a word of appreciation for Babul Akhter, and the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation, of which Akhtar is president. In all the news reports I've surveyed regarding labour conditions in Bangladesh I've not read of a single case of harassment or discrimination against Christian workers in this largely Muslim country. If so, maybe they have something to teach us.
-- EconoMix, refWrite Backpage economics, business, labour
Wall Street Journal (Dec5 ,2k12
Bangladesh:
