Canadian government must act for Bangladeshi workers

Ottawa still giving Bangladesh textiles tariff-free ride

By Ken Neumann

Three months after the Rana Plaza disaster that took 1,129 lives, Bangladeshi garment workers continue to suffer deplorable conditions that violate the most basic standards for human rights and dignity.

Despite the massive scope of this ongoing human tragedy, most western governments are failing to take meaningful action to improve the dreadful working and living conditions of Bangladeshi workers. Canada is even rejecting the minimal steps that our allies are taking.

Our federal government has the means to exert significant pressure on the government of Bangladesh to improve labour and living standards for garment workers.

Stephen Harper’s Conservatives should follow U.S. President Barack Obama’s example of suspending special trade benefits to Bangladesh until genuine improvements for exploited workers emerge.

Canada currently provides tariff-free access to the Canadian market for garment imports from Bangladesh. The Canadian program and a similar system in the European Union have been a boon to Bangladeshi factory owners, but garment workers have neither shared in the profits nor benefited from better working conditions.

The U.S. government’s suspension of its preferential program had an immediate effect. The government of Bangladesh scrambled to try to convince other countries — particularly in the EU, which buys 60 per cent of Bangladeshi garment exports — not to follow the U.S. lead.

The Bangladeshi government announced a plan to establish higher standards for workplace safety and workers’ rights. Workers will even be allowed to join unions, the government claimed in its pledge.

But such promises have been made before by politicians and factory owners in Bangladesh, only to be ignored later and workers left to suffer some of the worst conditions in the world.

Millions of Bangladeshi garment workers — mostly women — continue to be treated as indentured servants. They toil in horrible, sweatshop conditions, earning as little as 12 cents an hour.

They work — and live — in misery.

“They have no rights,” says Charles Kernaghan, director of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights, which is supported by the United Steelworkers.

“They work 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week. They get one day off a month. And they live in abject misery, in miserable hovels that are unimaginable,” says Kernaghan, whose organization has led the way in exposing the human tragedy in Bangladesh.

This is not to say that progress is not being made in the fight to improve working and living standards in Bangladesh. Unfortunately, the government of Canada is not part of these progressive efforts.

In the aftermath of the Rana Plaza disaster, a historic agreement was brokered in May by the global labour federation IndustriALL, bringing on board dozens of international brands and retailers that source clothing from Bangladesh.

The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh calls for more safety inspectors to be deployed and empowered to fix the most urgent problems in the garment industry, and for apparel companies to help pay for factory upgrades.

Signatories to the accord — including Canada’s Loblaw, owner of the Joe Fresh brand — are legally bound to fulfil their commitments.

However, some of the world’s largest and most-profitable clothing retailers, including Walmart, Target and Gap, have refused to sign on to this accord to help Bangladeshi workers. These corporations have instead come up with their own plans, which lack legally binding commitments to improve standards in thousands of Bangladesh factories.

The government of Canada must act now and demonstrate international leadership. It should endorse the legally binding Bangladesh accord. It should publicly call for Walmart, Gap and other brands to sign on to the accord rather than hide behind their own “voluntary” plans. Corporations that have profited from the misery of Bangladeshi workers must take greater responsibility for their actions.

Our government must suspend our preferential trading program with Bangladesh and urge the EU to do the same. Only then will government and factory owners in Bangladesh be compelled to accept fundamental changes that are needed to lift millions of workers out of misery and give them real hope for the future.

Ken Neumann is national director for Canada for the United Steelworkers.