Wal-Mart’s Own Audit Found the Factory to Be “High Risk”
The United Workers Congress stands with the Asia Floor Wage Alliance in condemnation of Wal-Mart and other multinational brands and retailers who knowingly rely on garment factories with extremely exploitative conditions including dangerous working conditions and substandard wages. In the weekend fire at Tazreen Fashions in Bangladesh over a hundred workers died after being able to escape the fire and many more suffered serious burns and smoke inhalation after being unable to escape fires because exits were blocked and safety equipment failed. This follows similar fires where garment workers lost their lives in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Although Wal-Mart’s own internal audits had previously identified the factor as “high risk”,. an investigation by the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity exposed Wal-Mart Garments sold to Wal-Mart under the brand name Faded Glory in the ruins of the burned shop floor.
“Over 100 workers were killed because multinational brands including Wal-Mart continue to drive prices paid to suppliers so low that workers are risking their lives by going to work,” said Anannya Bhattacharjee, international coordinator for the Asia Floor Wage Alliance. “This tragedy shows why workers lives depend on strong worker organizing against poverty wages, dangerous conditions, gender discrimination and repression of trade unions.”
The Asia Floor Wage Alliance has developed a proposal for an Asia wide minimum living wage for all garment sector workers and has organized international human rights tribunals in India and Cambodia demanding minimum living wage, the right to organize, and the rights of women workers in the garment sector.
The United Workers Congress supports the Asia Floor Wage Alliance in the following demands:
1) an independent and transparent investigation into the causes of the fire; and
2) full and fair compensation to be paid to the victims and their families.
The AFW Alliance further demands that brands immediately sign up with the sector-wide program that Clean Clothes Campaign together with local and global unions and labor rights organizations has developed that includes:
1) a program of independent and transparent inspections,
2) an obligatory upgrading of the buildings supplying participating brands,
3) a review of all existing laws and safety regulations,
4) a commitment to pay prices that can cover the costs involved and
5) the direct involvement of trade unions in worker training on health and safety.
