truthout - 12/24/13, By Kristina Chew, Care2
A man surveys the rubble left on the site of the former Rana Plaza garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Nov. 16, 2013. A coalition of four retailers, none of them American, have joined a $40 million fund to compensate victims of the building collapse which hopes to begin making payments in February 2014. (Photo: Tomas Munita / The New York Times)
Bangladeshi activists who entered the Tazreen Fashions site after the fire found clothing, labels and documentation from Disney, Dickies, Sears, Walmart and a number of other European companies. The four American companies have not offered the survivors or victims’ families any compensation. In response to inquiries from Human Rights Watch, the companies have provided evasive answers:
Dickies released a statement stating it had cut ties with the factory some time before. The CEO of Delta Apparels told ABC News on December 4, 2012, that Tazreen had not been authorized to produce its clothes. Sears was quoted in the Wall Street Journal of November 29, 2012, saying that merchandise was being made at the factory without its approval. …On December 21, 2012, Disney said that several boxes of its sweatshirts were found at Tazreen, but they had not been manufactured there, and had been stored there without its authorization.
U.S. and global companies need to face up to the reality that some of their products are produced by men, women and children working in sweatshop conditions.
More: truth-out.org
