Brands vs. Humane Treatment

And why the fashion industry should treat its workers right

On April 24, 2013, Bangladesh’s Rana Plaza factory collapsed, crushing Aklima Khanam beneath a falling machine and killing over 1,100 of her fellow garment factory workers. Almost a year later, Khanam, who suffers from a debilitating head and chest injury and can no longer work, has received no compensation.

The UNC-CH group Student Action with Workers (SAW) brought Khanam and Aleya Akter, Bangladeshi garment workers and activist leaders, to campus on Tuesday to encourage students to join the fight for safer workplaces and living wages in Bangladeshi factories.

According to statistics from the United Students Against Sweatshops organization, for 4 million people in Bangladesh—including Khanam and Akter—garment factory jobs provide the only viable source of income.

The workers spoke through a translator to tell stories of their own experiences in sweatshops. Before the Rana Plaza collapse, Khanam, 28, worked seven days a week from 8:00 a.m. until 12:00 a.m., but sometimes, the workday didn’t end until 3:00 a.m. She suffered physical and verbal abuse as she attempted to meet quotas of between 100 and 200 pieces every hour. Although she was not paid well, now that Khanam is injured, her family is struggling financially.

“Now that I can’t work . . . my brothers’ and sisters’ schooling has come to an end,” Khanam said. “We’re making clothing for university students, so does that mean that students want us to die in building collapses and fires?”

Although Akter, 29, was not involved in the Rana Plaza collapse, her factory job almost cost the garment worker her life. From the time she began work at the age of 10, the members of the factory management physically abused her by pulling her hair, slapping her, and kicking her from her work stool. If she spent too long in the bathroom or didn’t meet production quotas, she had to work overtime for no extra pay. Within the confines of the factory, there was neither clean water nor drinking water, and the management sometimes locked the workers inside the production area.

In 2006, after silently suffering for over a decade, Akter formed a workers association. When the foremen discovered what she had done, they suspended her for 22 days without pay. Akter’s co-workers protested her punishment by going on strike, and although the management allowed her to come back to work, they watched her closely and even hired thugs to harass her in the street.

“They started saying that they were going to kill me, that they wouldn’t let me leave alive,” Akter said. A group of men cornered her at work, took out a knife, and told her that they were going to cut her up; she only survived because a group of co-workers came to her rescue.

“We applied for a union then, but the government rejected our application,” Akter said. But the workers persisted, and in 2013, the application was approved. Akter calls factory conditions “worse than ever,” but unions like the one she founded could usher in change.

After the Rana Plaza collapse, a number of activists created The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, a five-year, legally binding agreement that—if signed by retailers—guarantees inspections of buildings done by both independent inspectors and workers. If structural problems are uncovered, employees cannot be forced or manipulated to continue work. Moreover, a clause in the accord allows workers to unionize.

“If there are unions in factories, then . . .workers will be able to present their demands to management,” Akter said. “This is the first time that unions are being involved in the production process.”

Since the accord went into effect in November 2013, Akter estimates that 400 factories have been inspected and evaluated for safety concerns. However, a number of major retailers refused to sign the agreement, including VF Corporation, the manufacturer of JanSport backpacks.

“We come here because your university has large contracts with VF, and there are a lot of abuses in VF factories,” Akter said. “We want to request from you that you cut ties with VF unless it signs the accord. We want all the brands who supply your university goods to sign the accord.” Although SAW representatives met with Chancellor Carol Folt about the matter last semester, Folt also received calls from VF executives, and she has not decided whether the university will cut ties with VF in protest. On April 24, 2014, the first anniversary of the Rana Plaza collapse, SAW members will march on South Building to renew awareness about the issue.

UNC Chapel Hill Communications professor Michael Palm encouraged the students in his global media politics course to attend both the event and the anniversary protest because it directly relates to their unit on the fashion industry.

“It ties into my curriculum well,” Palm said. “I’m excited, because it gives my students a chance to put a name and a face to the political and economic problems we discuss in class and the ways in which these people are making an effort to improve their lot.”

According to Akter, however, the workers cannot create change alone.

“We think that if you stand with us, we will be successful in our struggle,” Akter said, “because you are the people who are buying these clothes.”