Fire in Bangladesh Once Again Highlights Safety Concerns in Development

Earlier this term, I wrote a blogpost about a devastating fire in a Pakistani textile factory that killed more than 300 workers. This weekend, more than 100 workers died in a Bangladeshi garment factory. This news highlights disturbing working conditions in developing nations, as well as the ineffectiveness of relying on corporations to independently regulate conditions in suppliers’ factories.

The most devastating piece of information about this recent disaster is that authorities consider many of the deaths to have been preventable. Many deaths resulted from inadequate and, in some areas, nonexistent exits, as well as insufficient access for emergency responders.

Julfikar Ali Manik of The New York Times reports on the tumultuous political context in the factory. He writes, “Tensions have been running high between workers, who have been demanding an increase in minimum wages, and the factory owners and government. A union organizer, Aminul Islam, who campaigned for better working conditions and higher wages, was found tortured and killed outside Dhaka this year.”

Advocates of safety standards appear as aggravating faultfinders until disaster strikes and exposes the true human cost of disregarding safety measures. Now is the time for strengthening international labor regulations and enforcement measures in order to protect against these disasters. As recent factory disasters have painfully shown, the cost of insufficient regulations and enforcement is the disturbing and unnecessary loss of human life.

For the NYT article on the fire, see: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/world/asia/bangladesh-fire-kills-more-than-100-and-injures-many.html?_r=0