Over 100 Killed By Fire In Bangladeshi Factory Allegedly Supplying Walmart - ThinkProgress

A firefighter in the ruins of the Tazreen Factories plant.

A fire that killed 129 people in a Bangladeshi garment factory is raising questions about working conditions in the exporting hub. Sunday's deadly fire immolated the Tazreen Factories plant just outside the major city of Dhaka, which appeared to have been making clothes for Western clothing giants like Walmart. The Dhaka plant had no emergency exits and utterly deficient emergency evacuation procedures:

When the fire alarm went off, workers were told by their bosses to go back to their sewing machines. An exit door was locked. And the fire extinguishers didn't work and apparently were there just to impress inspectors and customers.

Though the safety risk posed by Tazreen's substandard equipments was understood well before Sunday's blaze, the same conditions appear to be relatively common among Bangladeshi factories. Since 2006, over 200 garment-factory workers have died in workplace fires. After another garment-factory lit up on Monday, the Guardian reported that "[w]orking conditions at Bangladeshi factories are notoriously poor, with little enforcement of safety laws, and overcrowding and locked fire doors are common."

Fire safety is far from the only threat facing Bangladeshi garment workers. Bangladesh's minimum wage requires workers be paid at least $37 a day, but there are credible reports of factories are paying below even this pittance as well as (occasionally sexual) abuse of employees. Bangladesh only recently legalized unions, and the ones that do exist are not yet powerful enough to take on the garment industry.

Many of these workers are making clothes for American and other Western markets; clothing makes up 80 percent of Bangladeshi exports and American imports from Bangladesh are growing rapidly.

Update

Walmart conceded on Monday night that their products were being made in the Tazreen Factories plant, saying "A supplier subcontracted work to this factory without authorisation and in direct violation of our policies…Today, we have terminated the relationship with that supplier."

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