COVID virus highlights how we must take responsibility for our cheap fashion wear

It is highly likely you are currently wearing an item of clothing made in Bangladesh. If not, you’ll probably find something in your wardrobe that is; for a large percentage of sportswear bought in this country, underwear and many other items originate from the garment sweatshops of Dhaka.

Over 4 million workers, mainly women, work in hot, crowded conditions often for twelve hours a day, seven days a week, topped by an hour or more commute on foot, both ways, thus making a very tough way of life. Tough, but not very rewarding, as most of them live a hand-to-mouth existence to feed their families in the slums and villages around the sprawling capital city. This life has just got tougher as Bangladesh is now feeling the full effects of the Corona virus, as it ripples around the globe.

Hard work, low pay (about ￡75 a month) and conditions never acceptable here in the UK are not new to Bangladesh. Most people will remember the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013 when over 1000 workers were killed when an eight story garment factory collapsed. Yet today a similar disaster seems about to hit this country as a toxic mix of the COVID-19 virus and market collapse is set to seriously damage the Bangladeshi economy. When the EU granted Bangladesh privileged access to its markets some years ago, the industry grew steadily; 6% a year as western consumers absorbed quality goods at low prices. By the time the virus struck, Bangladesh’s garment industry was bringing some ￡17 billion a year into this south Asian country, with over 90% of its exports going to Europe and the USA.

As Rana Plaza showed, factory accidents and a lack of health and safety has long been a concern to Bangladesh’s workers but inevitably they accept sometimes appalling conditions as a necessity of life. Although outlawed by legislation the unsatisfactory conditions are ignored and trade unions often face discrimination – hence union membership is below 5%.

When in March this year the UK government ordered Marks and Spencers, Asda, Sports Direct and other high street stores to close their doors, the effects were felt almost immediately in Bangladesh with orders cancelled and British companies backtracking on agreements. According to Tamsin Blanchard in Vogue magazine over ￡2.2 billion worth of orders were annulled in April without compensation to the suppliers, many of whom were left with the raw materials they had already purchased and had ready in the factories.

Ayesha Barenblat, Chief Executive of anti-fast-fashion pressure group Remake, is arguing that operators should pay for goods ordered from Bangladeshi factories before the pandemic broke out, citing several names familiar to British consumers including Gap, Primark and Mothercare.

San Francisco-based Remake has also accused ASDA of leaving factory workers in Bangladesh to go hungry, by cancelling or suspending garment orders without full payment.

Those suppliers who did manage to complete their exports to the UK, helping to meet the increasing on-line demand were hit by another problem. The reduced availability of international flights meant it became instantly more difficult and more expensive to export the completed garments.

Almost overnight freight companies increased their prices to UK and the rest of Europe from about ￡168 for a 40kg shipment to over ￡230 - an instant rise of more than 36%. This instantly hit both the company’s profits but also the workers’ wages as many employees were forced to accept a 30% cut in their already meagre wage packets. Many factories shut and over one million workers were laid off.

Seeing garment exports fall by 84% in the first half of April due to cancelled or suspended orders, the Bangladesh government initiated a ￡6 billion stimulus plan for the industry on the back of ￡577 million in emergency aid from the IMF and ￡100 million from the European Union .  So controversially, factories were ‘forced’ to re-open just as the pandemic hit south Asia.

The Guardian reported that returning workers at garment factories complained of inadequate anti-virus measures with little or no evidence of social-distancing either in overcrowded workplaces or on the special transport provided. Fear of losing their jobs and economic necessity forced them to cooperate.

Whilst fewer than 1000 people have died in Bangladesh (compared with over 40, 000 in the UK), three quarters of those infected have been garment workers.

Some factory owners have since started testing their workers for Coronavirus and tried to stem the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace, but with a current capacity to test only a fraction of the industry’s four million employees.

Nazma Akter, leader of one of Bangladesh’s largest unions, Sommilito Garments Sramik Federation, welcomed the testing but complained that her workers had still felt the brunt of this crisis as hundreds ‘had still not been paid their salary from May or a bonus paid to mark the annual Eid holiday.’

Bizarrely one factory official, Rubana Huq tried to reassure her employees by suggesting the number of Bangladeshi garment workers getting infected would be very low, because ’poor people have a certain type of special power. They know how to fight. They are self-aware, and they take for granted that they will not be sick. This is the power that helps them keep going.’

Factories have argued the need to restart production is due to pressure to complete and ship orders from suppliers such as Sainsbury’s,Tesco and Primark.

Many of these workers have been infected since the government allowed garment production to restart on April 26, as the pandemic was escalating beyond the control of health authorities. The government’s decision to reopen factories was criticised by workers’ rights leader Sarwer Hossain who said ’without enforcing proper safety measures, the lives of hundreds of thousands of garment workers, their families and communities were being put in grave danger’.

Just as the Rana Plaza disaster seven years ago was an eye-opener to many, this crisis has highlighted again, just how fragile the fashion system really is,” says Carry Somers, of the campaign #WhoMadeMyClothes, quoted in Vogue.

As the demand for cheap fashion wear in the west continues, the question we in the UK must surely ask ourselves, how long can we realistically and morally, continue to wear clothes and use other products, when we know but try to ignore, the conditions and human dangers under which these items are produced?

This article is about Bangladesh, but the same story could easily be told for other countries, Cambodia, China, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and the list goes on.

Robert Evans

June 2020

Research and sources; @guardian, @Reuters, @theGrocer, @CNN, @Vogue, @Atlantic Council South Asia Centre, @National Public Radio USA, @Facebook, @Twitter and @Bangladesh trade Unions @Sommilito Garments Sramik Federation, @Sarwer Hossain @whomademyclothes, @Remake

https://www.dhirubhai.net/groups/137418/

Pictures: Workers wearing face masks in a Dhaka garment factory, 2 May 2020. Photograph: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP via Getty Images

SAW The cost of shipping garments to the west has jumped by up to 50% (source Facebook)