Commentary Bangladesh Clothing Factory Fires: The Way Forward

Transcription

1 Practitioner Perspective Section Commentary Bangladesh Clothing Factory Fires: The Way Forward Bradley Bowden South Asian Journal of Human Resources Management 1(2) SAGE Publications India Private Limited SAGE Publications Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC DOI: / Abstract The Bangladeshi clothing factory fires and building collapses that killed thousands of workers in 2012 and 2013 created international outrage. One result of this was the Accord on fire and building safety in Bangladesh, an Accord signed between garment retailers and their Bangladeshi suppliers. This article explores this response by placing the recent Bangladeshi disasters in a wider historical context. It argues that disasters such as those that have occurred in Bangladesh have their root cause in a production bottle-neck. While spinning and weaving is highly mechanized, the final step in clothing manufacture (sewing) is labour intensive. This creates an age-old drive to lower costs by concentrating low-paid clothing workers in buildings that are not designed for the job at hand. Fire and building collapses are the inevitable result. Keywords Clothing, textile, Bangladesh, manufacture, employment, health and safety In the last two years, Bangladesh s clothing factory workers have suffered an inordinate death toll. In November 2012, 117 people died when the Tazreen factory caught fire, trapping many inside. Worse was to follow in April 2013, when a factory collapsed killing an estimated 1,129. In the face of such disasters, the first instinct is to point the finger of blame at the owners of such enterprises; owners who, with the blood of hundreds on their hands, have a direct and immediate responsibility for the loss of life. Once the arrests and trial have passed into history, however, more difficult questions raise themselves. Why is it that this industry has been plagued by catastrophic fires for so long? How can the industry move forwards in ways that mitigate against a repetition of such disasters? Should the industry continue to concentrate large numbers of workers in one space or should it revert to home-based production? If it does invest in a modern factory system, with commensurate improvements in employee working conditions, what are the long-term consequences of this given the often thin Bradley Bowden, Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Australia. b.bowden@ griffith.edu.au

2 284 Bradley Bowden margins on which clothing makers often operate? It is to these questions that this analysis speaks. Clothing Manufacture: An Industrial Bottleneck Since the dawn of time, much human endeavour has been invested in making clothing and footwear. From the time of the caveman until the early decades of the modern era, this endeavour was one typically completed in the home. As humans moved from utilizing animal skins, however, clothing manufacture was disaggregated into three distinct tasks: spinning (typically of wool, cotton or silk), weaving and sewing. For farming communities, the first two of these tasks provided a means for family income during those parts of the year when due to heat, cold or rain normal farming activities were impossible. Typically, spinning of the raw material into thread was a task undertaken by women and children. By contrast, the operation of weaving frames was a job typically undertaken by men. While the household economy might also produce clothes, cutting and sewing were more complex tasks. Tailoring was thus, in most societies, a specialized skill, carried out most commonly by mature males who had completed an extensive apprenticeship, whether formal or informal. For producers, the fact that spinning and weaving were distinct tasks, separate from actually clothing manufacture, always created problems. Essentially, they had two options. First, they could continue to utilize the household economy, providing families with raw material and picking up the finished cloth. The problem with this option was, in addition to the obvious transport costs involved, a lack of standardization. Neighbouring houses could produce cloth of markedly different thread warp and weave. The second option was to concentrate workers in one spot typically in places where tailoring was well established where they could be subject to supervision. While this latter option was pursued from time immemorial, it was historically resisted by employees who were loath to see family members perform work under the direction of strangers who might (and often did) subject them to personal or sexual abuse. 1 Part of the above-mentioned problem was solved in the Industrial Revolution, when spinning and weaving became the first activities to be industrialized. Within a few decades, home-based spinning and weaving was more or less destroyed, as mass-produced European product saturated world markets; an outcome that deprived farming families of much of their traditional income. While work in the new textile mills was often unpleasant, catastrophic fires were nevertheless relatively rare given that the weight and expanse of the machinery utilized within demanded solidly constructed buildings typically at ground level. If massproduced cloth solved one managerial problem, it however created another as a bottleneck emerged in the production process. For while cloth making was subject to ever more highly capitalized industrial processes, cutting and, more particularly, sewing were not. Even the invention of the famed Singer sewing machine

3 Bangladesh Clothing Factory Fires 285 in the 1850s provided only modest alleviation. While the Singer eliminated the need for skilled (typically male) hand sewing on all but the most expensive tailored clothes, thereby transforming clothing manufacture into a predominately female occupation, the bottleneck remained. Over time, this bottleneck became more rather than less pronounced. If anyone has walked the floors of a modern clothingmaking factory, such as the Arvind Mills in Ahmedabad in India, he or she witnesses a workplace that has very few employees and very few direct labour costs. By contrast, clothing making is as labour intensive today as it was in the 1850s. To overcome the bottleneck that continues to confront the textile industry, employers have three choices: outsource to the household sector; bring textile making and clothing manufacture under the one roof; or outsource to a lower-cost country capable of providing the necessary supervision. Of these three choices, the first is not an option for companies wishing to provide a standardized product of modest-to-high quality. This leaves the remaining two choices, each with advantages and disadvantages. Manufacture at the point of textile production minimizes transport and wastage costs. It also allows for shorter production times. For higher quality and priced items, such a strategy also ensures that production is associated with acceptable safety and working conditions a not inconsiderable factor given increased consumer interest in corporate social responsibility. Outsourcing to lower-cost nations has the obvious advantage of price. But is also generally associated with more dubious and hazardous employment conditions; problems that can do immense damage to the brand of the firm whose name appears on the label of the finished item. Unlike textile making, the manufacture of clothing in a mass, supervised environment poses a high risk of fire. There are a number of reasons for this. First, the machinery used (sewing machines) is light, a circumstance that allows workers to be concentrated in multistoried buildings. Such buildings are, moreover, often built for other purposes (offices, warehousing) and can also be of advanced age. Second, given the importance of supervision to ensure standardized product, it is to management s advantage to place workers in close vicinity to each other. Third, given the concentration of many people in small, often elevated areas, access and egress is typically poor particularly in times of emergency. Finally, the concentration of large amounts of highly flammable textiles in a small area (sewing workers are typically surrounded by clothing offcuts) means there is always a ready source of combustion. Unsurprisingly, these conditions are a recipe for disaster, of which the clothing industry has a long litany. Perhaps the most infamous of these is the Triangle Shirt factory fire in New York, which killed 146 people in March In this fire, sewing machine operators were crowded into a ninth storey allotment in New York s Lower East Side. As is often the case in the industry, when the fire erupted, the doors were all locked from the outside an action typically undertaken by management as a precaution against theft. While management was cleared of manslaughter in the Triangle fire, they were nevertheless subject to a successful civil action by the victims. For all concerned, in short, the fire was a disaster.

4 286 Bradley Bowden Disaster Responses Understandably, disasters such as the Triangle Shirt factory and, more recently, the Bangladeshi disasters of 2012 and 2013 have produced mass outrage. In the case of Bangladesh, this involved not only nationwide industrial stoppages by clothing workers but also an international campaign, the latter involving organizations such as the International Labour Organization (ILO), Oxfam and various trade unions as well as the popular press. The substantive result of this was the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh (Accord, 2013). Endorsed on 13 May 2013, the Accord soon boasted 130 signatories; signatories that included both the Western companies who were subcontracting to Bangladesh as well as many of the larger Bangladeshi suppliers. Under the terms of the Accord, the signatories committed themselves to the goal of a safe and sustainable Bangladeshi Ready-Made Garment (RMG) industry in which no worker needs to fear fires, building collapses, or other accidents. To fulfil the noble sentiments outlined in the Accord (2013), a permanent Steering Committee was established. Comprising seven representatives (three from the Bangladeshi clothing unions, three from company signatories and a neutral Chair from the ILO), the Steering Committee was responsible for the oversight of both factory inspections and training. Operationally, these latter tasks were devolved to a Safety Inspector and a Training Coordinator. Together, these two officials were to oversee a programme of safety inspections, remediation and fire safety training. Those companies such as Australia s Just Group (maker of Just Jeans) that failed to sign up to the Accord, or were slow in doing so, found themselves under public pressure from organizations such as Oxfam. As has been the pattern in responses to clothing factory disasters elsewhere, the Accord (2013) is based on the premise that the evils evident in the industry can be overcome through safety inspections, remediation and fire safety training. Unfortunately, there is little evidence that such hopes have much correspondence to reality. Instead, the gulf between hope and reality was soon demonstrated to anyone who took the time to read the factory reports published by the Steering Committee (Accord, 2014). For example, an inspection of the Ananta Denim Technology Ltd factory at Naryanagong, completed on 25 March 2014, showed that there was no fire-rated barrier between areas storing diesel and other combustible material and the rest of the factory. Nor were there any fire-protected stairs or exits, despite the multistoried nature of the factory. The fire alarm was found to be antiquated. Automatic sprinklers were noted only in absence. Among the litany of other failings found in the factory were the absence of a system of automatic smoke detectors, inadequate egress lighting, storage of equipment in exit areas and poor ceiling construction. Despite the manifest unsuitability of the building for clothing manufacture, the report nevertheless indicated a remediation timeframe of three months for most faults. Similar failings to those found at the Ananta Denim factory were also evident at the Amire Sweater factory in Dhaka, which was inspected on 27 March 2014.

5 Bangladesh Clothing Factory Fires 287 Here, the inspector recorded that all levels of the four-storied building had an excessive fuel load of combustible material. Fire protected exits were again absent. Also missing were: generator and boiler rooms constructed of fire- resistant materials; unobstructed exits; a reliable fire alarm system; and integrated smoke alarms. Most worrying was the placement of a children s day care centre, devoid of any fire exit, on an upper floor. Amazingly, the inspection report, once again, indicated that most of these problems were capable of being remedied within three months. An inspection of the Al Islam Textile Industry Ltd factory in Dhaka, completed on 6 May 2014, made similar observations and recommendations. As was the case at the Ananta Denim factory, the Al Islam factory stored diesel in rooms that were not separated from the rest of the factory by fire- resistant materials. Separate, fire-protected exits were again conspicuous by their absence. Egress lighting was deemed inadequate, as was the inspection, testing, and maintenance of the fire alarm system. Optimistically, these problems were also deemed fixable within three months. There is no doubt that the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh is morally praiseworthy. For Western retailers who rely on Bangladeshi factories for supply, the Accord (2013) is also useful in assuaging those numerous customers who have been made to feel ill at ease about their retail bargains. Sadly, however, like much that occurs in the field of corporate social responsibility, the steps advocated within the Accord are an example of gesture masquerading as meaningful action. The advocacy of inspections and training is also at odds with the fundamental premises of occupational health and safety risk management; premises based upon the idea that there is a Hierarchy of Control. Under the Hierarchy of Control, administrative controls such as inspections and training should be used as a supplement, rather than as an alternative, to higher-order controls (substitution, isolation and engineering-out). For, as any perusal of the factory photos that accompany the factory inspection reports will demonstrate, the vast majority of the buildings currently being used in Bangladesh for clothing manufacture are singularly unsuited for the purpose for which they are being used. Any hopes that the structural problems identified by the reports which include the location of large numbers of workers on the upper stories of buildings with limited and unprotected exit points can be fixed within three months are simply delusional. Rather than pointing the way forward, the Accord s inspection reports merely demonstrate that future disasters are more or less inevitable. Where to now, then, for the Bangladeshi clothing industry? Of the actions that can be undertaken, a return to home-based manufacture can be ruled out due to the consumer demand for standardized product. The current status quo can also be ruled out. Any repetition of the recent fires has the potential to destroy the industry by placing an irredeemable stain on the country s product. Another step that will do little is improved external fire-fighting capacity, given that the period between initial combustion and uncontrolled catastrophic blaze can be measured in minutes. This, effectively, leaves only one option: a more regulated industrial

6 288 Bradley Bowden environment that sees production shift to specialized facilities that have inbuilt smoke alarms, automated sprinklers and a capacity for mass exit in a very short time. Given that such facilities are best provided in low-rise, rather than high-rise, buildings, this more or less necessitates a geographical shift away from highly populated inner-city areas to new industrial estates located on the urban fringes. All of this, of course, entails costs; costs that may (and almost certainly will) cause a loss of custom to countries with even lower costs and even worse health and safety outcomes. In this, Bangladesh finds itself in the same cleft stick that earlier clothing producers, confronted with similar disasters, found themselves; a process that has seen mid-to-low end clothing manufacture shift from places like New York s Lower East Side to, first, China and North Africa and, more recently, South and Southeast Asia. In this environment, Bangladeshi producers must now aim for higher end products, surrendering lower-value work to those that emerge beneath them in the value chain. Note 1. The best account of this dichotomy is found in Thompson (1991: chapter 9 [The Weavers]). References Accord. (2013, May 13). Accord on fire and building safety in Bangladesh. Retrieved from on 10 September (2014). Accord on fire and building safety in Bangladesh: Inspection reports. Retrieved from InspectionReportsEnglish.aspx on 10 September Thompson, E.P. (1991). The making of the English working class. London: Victor Gollance.