Responsibility

After the Tarzeen fire and Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh over the past year, killing over 1200 workers in total, European companies subcontracting to those factories have stepped up and built a system of compensation for the families of the dead, the injured, and the unemployed. And that’s a positive. The American companies–not so much:

Even as labor advocates single out Primark for praise, they single out Walmart for criticism — partly because production documents recovered after the Tazreen fire indicate that two months before that fire erupted, 55 percent of the factory’s production was being made for Walmart contractors. Walmart has repeatedly been asked to contribute to the anticipated $6 million compensation program for Tazreen survivors and families.

“Walmart is the one company that is showing an astonishing lack of responsibility, considering that so much of their product was being made at the Tazreen factory,” said Samantha Maher, a campaign coordinator for the British arm of the Clean Clothes Campaign, a European anti-sweatshop group.

Walmart has also been asked to contribute to the planned Rana Plaza fund because production documents were found in the building rubble indicating that a Canadian contractor was producing jeans for Walmart in 2012 at the Ether Tex factory inside the building. Walmart said that unauthorized contractors were producing garments without the company’s knowledge.

After the International Labor Rights Forum, an advocacy group based in Washington, wrote to Walmart to urge its participation in the compensation efforts, Rajan Kamalanathan, Walmart’s vice president for ethical sourcing, responded in an email that Walmart did not intend to participate. He wrote that “there was no production for Walmart in Rana Plaza at the time of the tragedy” and that the Walmart-related production at Tazreen was unauthorized.

I can’t speak much about the European companies. But for the American apparel industry, it is once again obvious that its ultimate labor vision is the Gilded Age in the United States, when workers risked their lives every day they went to work and companies held no responsibility for the safety of its laborers. That the present system of outsourcing clothing production also mirrors that of the Gilded Age makes this even more conspicuous. And that like in the Triangle Fire, the companies involved face no ramifications after the Bangladesh disasters helps demonstrate this thesis.

There should be a special circle of Hell for Wal-Mart executives.