Should Textile Buyers Continue Buying Clothes Made in Bangladesh?

            Garments are very important in any person’s life. In fact, it is considered as sometime that we need in daily basis. Also, clothes are important in presenting a good first impression, it has become an integral part of our personality. Not only that, clothes are used in every single household. Apart from covering the body, clothes are used for many purposes at house such as, towel, curtains, bed sheet, bags, covers etc. therefore, it can be said that clothes play an important role in every aspect of our life whether it is the beauty of a person or decoration of the house.

            Not all the clothes that we use are made in USA, in fact, most of the clothes we use in daily basic are made in outside countries which is the reason why we get to use cheap clothes. Ig textile companies such as Walmart, H&M or Gap get their clothes made outside of USA. One of the countries where they get their supply of clothes from is Bangladesh. There are many positivity as well as negativity of getting clothes made in Bangladesh. Considering the fact that there are lack of Bangladeshi worker’s safety, it seems like USA merchandise brands should not order clothes made in Bangladesh to sell them to public.

            According to The New York Times, Bangladesh’s garment industry which is considered aa the second largest exporter after china, has a notoriously poor fire safety record. The fire which occurred at the Rana Plaza factory near Dhaka on April 24, 2013 killing 1,129 workers explains it all. This is considered as one of the worse disaster in garment industry history. This fire occurred a few months after the Tazreen Fashions fire which killed 112 Bangladeshi workers. In 2005, Specturum Sweater factory collapsed killing 64 workers. This is not the end, the most recent fire which occurred at a fire factory at Gazipur could have killed more than 6,000 workers if the factory was open. These kinds of small and big fire occur at the Bangladeshi factories every single month yet there is no improvement.

            Most of the workers at the Bangladeshi factories are either women or children. They come from poor family to support their families with more money. Safety at the garments has always been a big issue in Bangladesh. The big garment companies like Walmart, H&M and Gap have the power of these factories to improve their safety situation but they are not taking the responsibilities. A May 5, 2013 article in The New York Times entitled “Worker’s Safety in Bangladesh and Beyond” summarizes how the big western companies have the money to make an improvement to the safety situation. It states that according to the labor group it would cost $3 billion over five years to bring Bangladesh’s roughly 4,500 factories into compliance with building and fire standards. Which is a small amount of money to pay according to what they make every month. The article also state that a worker only gets paid $37 per month working 6-7 days a week. This explains how Bangladeshi works are working very hard but getting paid less. And they are being the victim of fire because there are not enough safely precautions. This articles also talks about how the US government and European union should push the government of Bangladesh, led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, to enforce the country’s labor laws and building and fire code. But the Bangladeshi government has been reluctant because they think that this will bring up the cost for Western and European companies to order clothes from Bangladesh and they might start going to other cheap countries for their supply. Which might be a big issue for the country since After the fire, Disney said that they will no longer use clothes that’s made in Bangladesh, the article states.

Another article posted on April 28, 2014 by The New York Times, “One Year After Rana Plaza” which states that how the Bangladeshi workers and officials was scared that the Western retailers would stop business with the country, putting millions of people out of work. The garments in Bangladesh are one of the biggest source of income for the poor families there. It gives them hope and the opportunity to make more money to be able to afford their need. 80 percent of 3.5 billion garment worker at Bangladesh are woman or children. Because of these garments, they have job opportunities. People from village at banglad4sh move to the city to work at garments to make money for their family. If the big textile buyers stop making clothes in Bangladesh, Bangladesh government and the poor families will be out of money very soon. because of this fear, according to the International Labor Organization, the government has registered more then 140 labor unions after the big fire at Rana Plaza.  But this has not done enough to protect the labor organizers from violence and intimidation. The article states that two labor leaders were assaulted as they tried to unionize workers in February.

The Article “Before You Buy that T-Shirt” by The New York Times, posted on May 19, 2013 explains how big garment companies are hungry to get cheap clothes and the poor people are hungry for money and job. Which sums up to be the benefit for both side. But at the end, poor people are ready to risk their life for tiny amount of money and the companies don’t seem to care about the worker’s life at all. According to the article, Mr. Richard Locke, deputy dean of M.I.T.’s Slone School of Management states that “…our insatiable hunger for cheap clothing in constantly changing styles has created a race to the bottom in which perpetually push supplies in Bangladesh for faster delivery and lower price.” Research shows that some American shopper would pay more for clothes from factories where they take care of worker’s safety. But unfortunately, the companies barely show any details how the clothes are made. Layna Mosley, a political Science professor states that, “U.S. retailers probably think that this is in the news”, “the dust will settle and it will go back to normal.”

            Bangladeshi workers have been facing these kind of safely situation since the beginning of the factory work which has always left unseen, or sometime the government tried to improve the situation but didn’t put much effort into it. Poor families need money and the companies need cheap clothes so that they can make money out of it. Even though safety should be the most important thing to worry about for the workers but for the poor people are the big companies’ garments are the priority. If the government and the Western and European companies doesn’t take care of the safety of the factories, the fire will keep occurring and many more workers will have to end their life.