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More information:
Bangladesh garment factory fire kills at least 10 people, CBC, Oct. 8th, 2013.
Breaking: we’ve just learned
that a deadly factory fire broke out
at another factory in Bangladesh yesterday, killing eight people and
injuring another 50. It's just the latest in a string of tragedies that have
struck garment workers in Bangladesh.
The records we’ve obtained so far show
that the factory supplied both
Walmart and Gap. The media is just starting to report on the latest
tragedy. Let’s make sure that as the news breaks, tens of thousands of consumers
are putting the blame squarely where it belongs -- on the shoulders of greedy
companies like Gap and Walmart. It
shouldn't take more deaths to convince them to protect their workers by signing
the binding Accord of Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.
Since the Tazreen factory fire last
November, we've joined with activists around the world and pleaded for apparel
brands to sign the Bangladesh Safety Accord, which could make tragedies like
this a thing of the past. In the wake of the horrific Rana Plaza factory
collapse, which killed more than 1,000 workers, more than 90 companies agreed to
serious reforms, but Walmart and Gap
pushed a non-binding PR stunt of a safety plan. Bangladeshi workers are still
paying the price with their lives.
The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in
Bangladesh that Walmart and Gap refused to sign was designed to prevent
tragedies like this one. Under the Accord, factories will undergo fire
safety inspections, mandatory repairs and renovations, and apparel brands will
be required to help pay for any safety upgrades. The Accord's inspections will
be starting soon, and with hundreds of factories to cover, it won’t fix
everything overnight. In fact, several companies that have signed sourced from
the factory that burned down yesterday. This latest tragedy just underscores why
a new safety standard is so urgently needed, and the fact remains that the Accord is the only credible plan to stop
future disasters.
Incredibly, Walmart and Gap praised the
Bangladeshi firm responsible for this disaster as a “top supplier.”
It's just another reminder that we can't trust corporations with
people's safety, which is why the independent inspections and legally-binding
commitments to safety improvements that the Accord creates are so important. We
can't rely on Gap and Walmart's corporate-controlled "alliance for worker
safety" to do much more than give corporations an excuse to avoid getting
serious about worker safety.
Not only have Walmart and Gap refused to
sign a binding safety agreement, they have also refused to compensate the
victims of the factory disasters in which they've been implicated. In recent
years, over a thousand workers have lost their lives in factory fires and
collapses in Bangladesh, and hundreds more have been injured so severely that
they'll never work again. That means that thousands of families have lost a
primary breadwinner and are still struggling to survive. Walmart and Gap have made billions off of
Bangladeshi workers -- they have a responsibility to make sure that their
victims receive full and fair compensation.
When Walmart, Gap, and their allies walked
away from the Accord, we knew more workers would die as a
consequence. We can’t let this go on any longer. Let’s make sure that
Walmart, Gap, and the media hears us loud and clear as this story breaks.
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