87 Dead in Bangladesh Garment Factory Collapse

[georgephillip]

"...It (capital) usurps the time for growth, development and healthy maintenance of the body. It steals the time required for the consumption of fresh air and sunlight…. All that concerns it is simply and solely the maximum of labour-power that can be rendered fluent in a working-day. It attains this end by shortening the extent of the labourer’s life, as a greedy farmer snatches increased produce from the soil by reducing it of its fertility” (Capital, Chapter 10)"

Terror is your business, even if you are naïve enough to think it can't happen here again:

"It is well worth mentioning that the death toll in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City of 1911 was one hundred and forty six. The death toll here is already twice that."

The Terror of Capitalism » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

 

[Dragonlady]

I don't care. It's none of my business how other countries choose to protect or not protect their labor force.

You don't care.

Tell me about your all of your charity work and what an upstanding Christian woman you are. You care about the unborn, but you don't care about people dying so you can get a cheap shirt at Walmart.

No wonder you vote Republican.

 

[Katzndogz]

I don't care. It's none of my business how other countries choose to protect or not protect their labor force.

You don't care.

Tell me about your all of your charity work and what an upstanding Christian woman you are. You care about the unborn, but you don't care about people dying so you can get a cheap shirt at Walmart.

No wonder you vote Republican.

Did I EVER once say I did charity work? The ONLY person that claims I'm Christian is YOU! Did you make that up too?

People CHOOSE to do all kinds of dangerous work. They used to work in very dangerous buildings in this country or did you never hear of the Triangle Shirwaist Fire? That's different than murdering someone, including someone who was just born.

 

[georgephillip]

I don't care. It's none of my business how other countries choose to protect or not protect their labor force.

You don't care.

Tell me about your all of your charity work and what an upstanding Christian woman you are. You care about the unborn, but you don't care about people dying so you can get a cheap shirt at Walmart.

No wonder you vote Republican.

Did I EVER once say I did charity work? The ONLY person that claims I'm Christian is YOU! Did you make that up too?

People CHOOSE to do all kinds of dangerous work. They used to work in very dangerous buildings in this country or did you never hear of the Triangle Shirwaist Fire? That's different than murdering someone, including someone who was just born.

When capitalists lock fire escape doors as was done in Triangle Shirtwaist Fire they are committing murder. Possibly you would CHOOSE to care if one of the 129 young women who perished in the fire had been pregnant before jumping to her death?

 

[Katzndogz]

You don't care.

Tell me about your all of your charity work and what an upstanding Christian woman you are. You care about the unborn, but you don't care about people dying so you can get a cheap shirt at Walmart.

No wonder you vote Republican.

Did I EVER once say I did charity work? The ONLY person that claims I'm Christian is YOU! Did you make that up too?

People CHOOSE to do all kinds of dangerous work. They used to work in very dangerous buildings in this country or did you never hear of the Triangle Shirwaist Fire? That's different than murdering someone, including someone who was just born.

When capitalists lock fire escape doors as was done in Triangle Shirtwaist Fire they are committing murder. Possibly you would CHOOSE to care if one of the 129 young women who perished in the fire had been pregnant before jumping to her death?

No one locked the doors to prevent people from escaping in case of a fire.

It's no different that a mining accident, or a construction accident. Especially in a foreign country. If you don't like the way WalMart does business, don't shop there. If you don't like the way a foreign country conducts their internal affairs go down to a consulate office and wave a sign. Americans do not really control the world by making a frowny face.

 

[georgephillip]

Why did the capitalists who "owned" the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory lock fire escape doors?

 

[Dragonlady]

Why did the capitalists who "owned" the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory lock fire escape doors?

They didn't want their workers "escaping" after they were ordered to evacuate.

Profit margins for these subcontractors is very low - pennies per garment, and missing a delivery date would mean the loss of the contract. The owners of these companies are ruthless in ensuring that their workers don't cause trouble. Activist organizers have been tortured and murdered in a public way so as to intimidate and frighten anyone else from agitating for the enforcement of building codes and safety standards.

This is the so-called "Pinochet Option" which free market reformers have been using since Pinochet ousted Allende in Chile and took all of the lawyers, university professors and union leaders into the soccer stadium in the capital and quite publically tortured and murdered them, in full view of the nation to discourage further opposition to his reforms.

This "disappeared" in South America in the 1970's were liberals who opposed the dismantling of social programs, and the sell-off of publically owned banks, railways and utilities. They were picked up in government owned Fords, often in broad daylight, in full view of their neighbours, only to be found tortured and murdered later. These brutally public actions tended to have an extreme chilling effect on opposition to government reforms, regardless of how much hardship they inflicted upon the general population.

People in Bangla Desh are waiting for the government to crack down on the protesters in the area where the building collapse took place. They don't believe that this building collapse will stop the deaths of workers - there have been numberous deaths to due fires, building collapses and other workplace safety issues, over the past year. And people are angry. That the government would attack the workers and not go after the owners of these corporations, speaks volumes.

 

[Dragonlady]

Americans do not really control the world by making a frowny face.

No but they do control poor nations through the IMF and the World Bank, both of whom have been insisting on radical free-market reforms and open capital markets for US corporations as a condition to infrastructure loans, and other assistance.

 

[georgephillip]

Thugs like Sohel Rana have fetched a dime a dozen since the days of Dickens; capitalism could not function without them.
Now it's South Asia's turn to labor for pennies while a few build mansions from the blood and sweat, and misery of others:

"Sohel Rana is a well-known figure in South Asia. He is the guy who, in my youth, would stand at the street-corner, holding court with a bunch of toughs, and offering his threatening ways as protection or intimidation for payment.

"As South Asian countries entered the pact of globalisation, the Sohel Ranas of the street-corner opened an office.

"They put up a signboard that said something like Property Dealer or Import-Export, they lost their cheap clothes for designer brands and handed out business cards to sharpen their image."

Noam Chomsky alleges one particular historical irony regarding Bangladesh, formerly known as Bengal. The region was awash in wealth when the British arrived, with a technology so advanced the Europeans contracted with locals to build British vessels. Of course, the Brits brought industrial war to Bengal and all of India so that today parasites like Sohel Rana merely feed on Bengal's carcass.

And it's all backstopped by the greatest purveyor of violence on this planet.

Among the Thugs » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

 

[bodecea]

I don't care. It's none of my business how other countries choose to protect or not protect their labor force.

You don't care.

Tell me about your all of your charity work and what an upstanding Christian woman you are. You care about the unborn, but you don't care about people dying so you can get a cheap shirt at Walmart.

No wonder you vote Republican.

Did I EVER once say I did charity work? The ONLY person that claims I'm Christian is YOU! Did you make that up too?

People CHOOSE to do all kinds of dangerous work. They used to work in very dangerous buildings in this country or did you never hear of the Triangle Shirwaist Fire? That's different than murdering someone, including someone who was just born.

And what happened because of that?

 

[Misty]

No this isn't terrorism, it is unfettered capitalism. This is the world that Walmart has built. Incidentally, Walmart was one of the major customers of the collapsed building. This is the price that Third World workers pay for Walmart's price roll-backs.

World update to dragonlady; walmart is not the only company that outsources and it's unions and liberal's fault because they try to take the power away from entrepreneurs. Red tape, taxes, and unions have ruined industry for this country. Proudly brought to you by liberalism.

 

[georgephillip]

"The Web was abuzz yesterday with Occupy-movement-appropriate news that the Waltons, heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune, have amassed a fortune equal to that of the combined net worth of the bottom 30 percent of Americans, according to an analysis in 2007."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/wal-mart-heirs-have-same-net-worth-as-the-bottom-30-percent-of-americans/

How does democracy survive in a pay-to-play political system when six parasites control more wealth than 30% of their fellow citizens?

 

[waltky]

EU gonna make Bangladesh improve safety standards for garment workers...

EU considers trade action after Bangladesh factory collapse
1 May`13 - The European Union is considering trade action against Bangladesh, which has preferential access to EU markets for its garments, to pressure Dhaka to improve safety standards after a building collapse killed more than 400 factory workers.

Duty-free access offered by Western countries and low wages have helped turn Bangladesh's garment exports into a $19 billion a year industry, with 60 percent of clothes going to Europe. Any action by the EU on Bangladesh's duty-free and quota-free access would require the agreement of all member states and could take more than a year to implement. "The European Union calls upon the Bangladeshi authorities to act immediately to ensure that factories across the country comply with international labor standards...," the 27-nation bloc said in a statement issued by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht.

Bodies of unidentified garment workers, who died in the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Savar, lie on the ground as people gather to watch a mass burial in Dhaka

In the United States, prominent Democrats Sander Levin and George Miller wrote a letter to President Obama urging him to facilitate the development of a concrete plan of action to address the range of issues relating to working conditions and worker rights in the garment sector in Bangladesh. The death toll from the collapse last week of the illegally built Rana Plaza in Dhaka's commercial suburb of Savar rose to 411 on Wednesday and about 40 unidentified victims were buried. One woman at the cemetery collapsed into tears when she recognized the body of her sister by her dress.

Several thousand workers rallied in the capital to mark Labour Day, and some called for capital punishment for those responsible for the tragedy. "The owner of the building ... should be hanged to death and compensation should be given to the injured and those who died," said labor leader Moshrefa Mishu. "A healthy and safe atmosphere should be made in the factories."

"SHOT ACROSS THE BOWS"

 

[georgephillip]

Funny how exploitation is built into some economic systems:

"The 'Lowell Mill Girls' (or 'Factory Girls,' as they called themselves) were female workers who came to work for the textile corporations in Lowell, Massachusetts, during the Industrial Revolution in the United States.

"The women initially recruited by the corporations were daughters of propertied New England farmers, between the ages of seventeen and twenty five.

"By 1840, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, the textile mills had recruited over 8,000 women, who came to make up nearly seventy-five percent of the mill workforce."

Lowell Mill Girls - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[waltky]

Garment factory collapse toll reaches 547...

Bangladesh toll 547; search becomes more gruesome
May 4,`13 -- Ten days after the horrifying collapse of a garment-factory building, life has become still more gruesome for crews working to recover bodies at the site. The death toll rose to 547 on Saturday and the stench of decaying flesh was sickening evidence that the work is not yet done.

Rescue workers said some bodies have deteriorated so badly that they have found bones without flesh. Since the April 24 collapse in the Dhaka suburb of Savar, high temperatures have generally been 32 degrees C (90 degrees F) or above, and lows have rarely dipped below 27 C (80 F). "The bodies are smelling. We are using air freshener to work here," said Mohibul Alam, a firefighter at the collapse scene. The odor of decay is overpowering just the same. Bodies have decomposed beyond recognition, Alam said, but he added that some could still be identified because the victims' identification cards were found with them.

Some of the victims who had been closest to escaping appear to be among the last to be recovered. Only now have rescuers dug deep enough, using cranes and other equipment, to approach the stairs of the ground floor. The official death toll from the collapse reached 547 Saturday and was expected to climb. The official number of missing has been 149 since Wednesday, though unofficial estimates are higher.

The disaster is likely the worst garment-factory accident ever, and there have been few industrial accidents of any kind with a higher death toll. It surpassed long-ago garment-industry disasters such as New York's Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, which killed 146 workers in 1911, and more recent tragedies such as a 2012 fire that killed about 260 people in Pakistan and one in Bangladesh that same year that killed 112. Bangladesh's $20 billion garment industry supplies retailers around the world and accounts for about 80 percent of the impoverished country's exports. The collapse has raised strong doubts about retailers' claims that they could ensure worker safety through self-regulation.

Five garment factories operated in the Rana Plaza building that collapsed, and many brand labels have been found in the wreckage, but only two retailers, Britain's Primark and Canada's Loblaw Inc., have acknowledged that their clothes were being made there at the time. Loblaw's CEO has decried the "deafening silence" from what he said were more than two dozen other international retailers who used garment factories in the collapsed building.

MORE

 

[georgephillip]

I'm sure we are all glad to hear the Economist magazine is under the impression that clothing companies are in the fore of "corporate social responsibility." I suppose a publication that puts Margret Thatcher on its cover with the epitaph "Freedom Fighter" should warn large western firms against leaving Bangladesh as that would damage their corporate brands.

"The catastrophe is the latest manifestation of a flourishing and corrupt system of workplace practices that has the effect of keeping prices low on Western high streets at the cost of putting faraway lives at risk. The people who bear those risks live and work in a country where their deaths carry pitifully small consequences for employers or, it would seem, for the state. The government says it will pay the equivalent of $250 in compensation to each family who lost a relative in the collapse at Savar."

Disaster in Bangladesh: The new collapsing building | The Economist

 

[georgephillip]

Workers in Bangladesh are paid about $8 a week and live in corrugated shacks about five and one-half feet tall. An average sized adult standing in the middle of such a "shelter" can touch all four walls without moving. Wage slavery would seem to exist wherever capitalism sets up shop.

 

[Dragonlady]

Workers in Bangladesh are paid about $8 a week and live in corrugated shacks about five and one-half feet tall. An average sized adult standing in the middle of such a "shelter" can touch all four walls without moving. Wage slavery would seem to exist wherever capitalism sets up shop.

This is exactly the kind of unfettered free-market capitalism that the IMF and the World Bank has been demanding impoverished nations adopt to help them improve their economic conditions. Whenever such reforms have been imposed, wages and working conditions have both declined.

Kudos to Loblaws and Primark for owning up to their responsibility to the workers. Other labels were found in the rubble but the silence from other European and North American brands, has been deafening.

 

[sitarro]

I don't care. It's none of my business how other countries choose to protect or not protect their labor force.

You don't care.

Tell me about your all of your charity work and what an upstanding Christian woman you are. You care about the unborn, but you don't care about people dying so you can get a cheap shirt at Walmart.

No wonder you vote Republican.

F you, it's Osama's base that shop at WalMart, they are the reason they exist. Something for nothing is how the live, taste and quality are nonexistent...... exactly why they are satisfied with a dolt like osama.

 

[sitarro]

Workers in Bangladesh are paid about $8 a week and live in corrugated shacks about five and one-half feet tall. An average sized adult standing in the middle of such a "shelter" can touch all four walls without moving. Wage slavery would seem to exist wherever capitalism sets up shop.

And yet they somehow find a way to repeatedly impregnate everything in sight.