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FIRES IN GARMENTS FACTORIES

Regulate Yourselves, Before Big Brother Steps Tn

CROSSCURRENTS

by CAF Dowlah
MAKING money with conscience has always been a difficult lob. Although both are essential Ingredients or Incentives for real life, often they clash head-on, leaving one or the other badly impaired as a result. The country's booming garments Industry seems to provide a prime example for that. Although profit margin in garments Is perhaps the highest in the country, at least some garment manufacturers seem to care little about those people whose sweat brings them the profit.
No. no attempt is being made here to repeat the classic debate between the followers of Adam Smith or Karl Marx. Whatever happened to that debate, the fact remains that nothing can be produced without the sweat of the worker No cotton will be transformed into yarn, no yarn will be altered into cloth, no cloth will take the shape of garments — unless the worker puts in his hand in the production process.
The garment manufacturers of the country — perhaps exhilarated by phenomenal success over the years — appears to have forgotten this simple fact. Thanks to their willful negligence to basic minimum safety measures in the sweat shops — so-called garments factories — at least 75 poor workers were killed In fire or stampede in last few years. At least 33 poor souls embraced brutal death in last one month alone.
Unfortunately, the problem does not stop here. Given the ex-
istlng condition of most of the sweat shops, it can be safely in ferred that similar fate must be awaiting for many others. According to a report, published in The Daily Star on August 1 last, most of the garments factories are housed in inappropriate structures. An overwhelming number of them do not have trained manpower to handle fire or even adequate exit facilities to let the workers run with their lives.
Many of the 2000 or so garment factories in and around the city use substandard electrical appliances, many of them operate with faulty power supply lines, and at least 50 per cent of these sweat shops simply don't have a license from the city fire authorities According to another report In the same newspaper, published on August 3 last, government officials claim that about 98 per cent of the garments factories don't meet safety standards.
No wonder, tne country's top export earner — the garments factories — has literally been turned Into death traps for largely uneducated female work force. These hapless creatures work religiously everyday — from dawn to dusk on a regular basis — without ever dreaming of proper working conditions or deserved payments. When fire breaks out. some are burnt to death, some are crushed in a
stampede and still others face death when they jump to the ground from multi-storied buildings.
No amount of foreign exchange earning can Justify such a heartless treatment to the hapless garments workers. It is. therefore, encouraging to learn that the garments manufacturers have come up with a plan to provide insurance coverage to the country's more than one million garment workers
within this week. Although its too little too late, nothing could be better news for the ill-fated garment workers of the country. The manufacturers also made commitments to build alternate staircases. install fire extinguishing equipment and fire evacuation drill, and to train the workers to vacate the factory quickly in case of fire.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out that it Is in the Interest of the garment manufacturers themselves to make sure that all these commitments are Implemented with religious
fervor. The garment manufacturers of the country had already faced a bigger challenge before — they had to do away with child labour to satisfy the demands of the buyers in western countries. The threat still remains. Possibilities are very strong that those customers will try to boycott Bangladeshi garments once again if they know the life-threatening conditions that the garments workers must endure in this
country.
The situation is indeed precarious for the garment manufacturers. Of course, many businesses kill people, but nowhere it is more spectacular than In this business. The cigarette and bidi producers, for example, are causing deaths to numerous people everyday. But they kill gradually — through slow poisoning. Advanced societies are taking them to tasks. In the United States, for example. cigarette producers are paying back billions of dollars of their Ill-gotten wealth. God
knows how long it will take for Bangladesh to do the same!
Moreover, no more the garment manufacturers can make brisk profits by running sweat shops There is no denying that such sweat shops were at the forefront of industrial revolutions both in the United Kingdom and the United States. But that was then, more than two hundred years ago. Today's world — which is a globalised village connected by information super-highway — will not tolerate that.
The country's garment manufacturers must understand that they produce for global markets and most of their goods end up in western countries'. Western consumers were never more cautious in spending their money — they want to Know how and where the goods are produced, what Ingredients are used, where the profit goes, whether the product Is environmentally safe, and who are the workers and how they are treated. They don't mind in spending couple of extra bucks for promoting a sustainable and numane development.
Therefore, the challenge before the country's garment manufacturers is simply enormous. Being In a country that is at a rudimentary stage of industrial development, they must adhere to the most modern
working conditlpns and industrial relations, otherwise they will face problems in selling their products abroad. Also, the garments manufacturers must understand that the nation will no more watch helplessly the deaths of innocent workers for their greed — they must be able to make money with conscience.
Above all. as the most successful segment of the private sector in the country, the garment manufacturers have a moral responsibility to set up appropriate standards for others to follow. Nothing could be better business decision for them than doing away with the life-threatening working conditions in the garments factories on an emergency basis. The failures of the garments manufacturers to regulate themselves will invariably invite government intervention into the sector. And once the big brother steps in. the rest will be history.
If history is any guide, whatever the big brother of the country — the bureaucracy — touches, it itself becomes history. Look at what happened to Jute, textile and everything else that the bureaucracy controls. They have inconceivable ability to turn invaluable resources Into worthless ashes. Don’t let them destroy the country's hottest engine of economic growth. The garment manufacturers of the country have demonstrated in the past that they are up to the challenge, perhaps they will not fail the nation this time around.