10 years after the Rana Plaza disaster, fast fashion still has deadly risks — the industry’s many moving parts make it easy to cut corners.

(Discussion) On April 24, 2013, a multi-story garment factory called Rana Plaza in Bangladesh collapsed, killing more than 1,000 workers and injuring 2,500 others. It remains the worst industrial accident in the history of the garment industry and one of the deadliest in the world.

Several factories in the complex produced clothing for Western brands including Benetton, Primark and Walmart, shining a spotlight on the perilous conditions in which cheap American clothing is mass-produced. The humanitarian crisis has been hammered home as consumers in developed countries grapple with their own problems and call for change – but ten years on, progress is still scant.

As a professor of operations and supply chain management, I believe it’s important to understand how the complex and fragmented supply chains that are the norm in the apparel industry create conditions where unsafe conditions and abuses can flourish—and make it difficult to assign responsibility. Improvement.

Was he ashamed of his actions?

Rana Plaza was not the first garment industry disaster in Bangladesh. While the government has strict building codes “on the books,” they are rarely enforced. Most workers lack the information and power to demand safe working conditions.

However, the collapse of Rana Plaza was not only a humanitarian crisis but also a public relations crisis, prompting swift action by international organizations and Western brands and clothing retailers. A campaign was launched to get full and fair compensation for the victims’ families under the coordination of the United Nations agency of the International Labor Organization. Within a few months, two initiatives were launched to bring garment factories in Bangladesh to international standards: the European-led Fire and Construction Safety Convention and the US-led Bangladesh Worker Safety Alliance.

While the two initiatives differ in some important ways, they both share a common goal: improving building and fire safety by leveraging the purchasing power of member companies. In other words, Western brands insist that brand partners standardize or take their business elsewhere.

In total, the two agreements cover approximately 2,300 supplier factories. Coalitions have identified structural and electrical defects, conducted factory inspections and designed plans for factories to make improvements. The initiatives laid the groundwork for establishing worker safety committees and training workers to identify, address and prevent health and safety issues. Member companies allocate funds for supervision and worker training, negotiate trade terms and facilitate low-cost loans for factory upgrades.

Both were five-year deals; It sunsetted in 2018, but the agreement ran for a few years before handing over operations to the local Preparedness and Sustainability Council in June 2020.

The record since

The cost and expense of making these improvements, however, had to be largely borne by suppliers – a huge financial burden for many factories, especially given the low prices and thin profit margins of the garments they produce.

Through the alliance and the agreement, thousands of factories have been inspected for construction and fire safety, such as lack of fire and sprinkler systems, improper fire exits, faulty wiring and structural problems. At the end of five years, both initiatives have fixed 85%-88% of safety issues. Half of the factories have completed more than 90% of the initial reforms, and more than 260 of the first 2,300 factories have been banned from entering into contracts with member companies.

In addition, more than 5,000 beneficiaries, including injured workers and dependents of victims, were compensated through the Rana Plaza arrangement, receiving an average of approximately $6,500.

Overall, I believe these initiatives have been successful in bringing safety issues to the fore. Although there is good progress in terms of infrastructure improvements, there is still much to be done; For example, the initiative covered about one-third of the garment factories in Bangladesh. Importantly, they did not look at the company’s acquisition practices.

Yesterday and today clothes

To understand why so much clothing production takes place in poor quality conditions, we need to understand the underlying economic forces: – to meet the high demand in low-wage countries – and cheap – clothing to sell to customers in the West.

In the year In the 1960s, the average American household spent 10% of its income on clothing, buying 25 items of clothing—almost all made in the United States. Fifty years later, at the time of the Rana Plaza disaster, the average household spent 3.5 percent of its income on clothing—but bought three times as much goods, 98 percent of which were imported.

During these decades, low-income countries in Asia and Latin America began to produce more clothing and textiles. Clothing production is labor intensive, meaning the low wages of these countries were a major attraction for brands and retailers, and they gradually began to shift their sourcing.

For example, a typical retail deal on a $30 shirt is close to 60%. The factory made a profit of $1.15 and the worker only earned 18 cents. If the same shirt were produced in the US, labor costs would be closer to $10.

As labor costs in China continue to rise, Bangladesh has become a more attractive option. Apparel exports now account for 82% of the country’s total exports and the industry employs 4 million people, 58% of whom are women.

The development of this sector has greatly reduced poverty and benefited women. To meet the rapid growth of the clothing industry, however, many buildings were converted into factories as quickly as possible, often without the necessary permits.

Everyone and no one

A common way for foreign companies to source products from low-cost countries like Bangladesh is through middlemen or agents. For example, when a brand places a large order with an authorized factory, the factory may subcontract part of the production to smaller factories without notifying the brand in return.

This highly competitive environment, with people at every stage of the process looking for the lowest price and long-term relationships with no guarantees, gives suppliers an incentive to cut corners – especially when pressure to deliver on time is high. This can translate into exploitative labor practices or unsafe conditions that violate environmental laws, but enforcement capacity is weak.

In their constant search for lower prices, buyers may lose sight of these habits. The lack of transparency in the supply chain, especially when brands are not directly sourced, makes it difficult to investigate and correct these practices. Since the 1990s, global assessment of working conditions has grown, but improvement efforts have neglected construction and fire safety, the main reason for Rana Plaza’s failure. Because many buyers often use the same factory, no buyer feels the need to invest in a supplier to ensure better conditions.

When clothes arrive at stores thousands of kilometers away, they cross a complex global supply chain. On this site, workers are trapped, exploited by factory management, by governments that are rarely held accountable or unwilling or unable to enforce laws. By outsourcing production to low-cost countries, Western brands escape the scrutiny of their governments, absolving themselves of direct liability. And consumers, eager for bargains, shop at the lowest prices.

This complex system makes it difficult to assign moral responsibility, because everyone, and therefore no one is guilty.

This article is reprinted from the discussion under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here: https://theconversation.com/fast-fashion-still-comes-with-deadly-risks-10-years-after-the-rana-plaza-disaster-the-industrys-many-moving- Slice-make-it-easy-to-cut-corner-201538.