Activists Hold Vigil At Boston H&M In Memory of Bangladeshi Fire Victims

BOSTON/Downtown Crossing - Thirty protesters battled the bitter cold in front of Downtown Crossing's H&M on Monday evening to hold a Martin Luther King Day candlelight vigil to honor fallen sweatshop workers in Bangladesh. They mourned 112 workers who died in a garment factory fire on November 24th, 2012. Similar events took place in front of the Boston- area Walmart, Gap, and other H&M locations, all retail chains that were supplied by Bangladeshi factories where deadly fires have taken place in recent years.* Organizers hope to put pressure on these companies to sign a legally-binding fire safety agreement to prevent future tragedies.

According to Robert J. Ross, professor and director of International Studies at Clark University, 700 of these deaths have occurred since 2006. Ross estimates that the cost to consumers to create fire safety in Bangladesh factories is just seven cents per item of clothing. Mr. Ross’ work was featured in "Deadly Secrets," a 60-page report by the International Labor Rights Forum, which exposes the dangerous conditions in foreign garment factories in Bangladesh and Pakistan. Fourteen reported garment factory fires have occurred since 1997, with 11 resulting in casualties.

Mary Hewey, spokesperson for Mass. Jobs with Justice, waved a sign reading, "Hey H&M, you can't hide, we can see your greedy side." MassUniting, Union of Minority Neighborhoods, Democratic Socialists of America, and BlackandPink.org all had organizers and community supporters participating in the protest.

Reed Miller, an organizer for BlackandPink, and a community member from Jamaica Plain, said, "BlackandPink is here to support this. Lots of LGBT people shop at H&M. We're an organization that works with LGBTQ members in prison, and we're out here because of the idea that these workers are also locked into a prison. We're going to be doing this until worker's are safe and these companies sign on."

H&M did not return calls for comment. Their website has a proposed a "Bangladesh Development Plan," which mentions safety in the workplace and social development. It makes no mention of the November fire. The section on fire safety reads, "Safety in the workplace is another important issue, and H&M is cooperating with 18 other companies to improve fire prevention measures in factories. For a number of years H&M has routinely used films to educate more than 440,000 workers regarding their rights. Now this education technique is being used to train suppliers and their workers in good fire prevention and safety. In cooperation with fire prevention authorities in Bangladesh, H&M has developed two training films. The industry organizations aim to show the films in all of their members’ factories within two years."

In March of 2012, apparel giant PVH Corp reached an agreement with trade unions in Bangladesh on legally enforceable factory safety programs. Under a safety program, brands and retailers must disclose supplier factories to independent inspectors. Agreements adopted by PVH, Calvin Klein, and Tommy Hilfiger state that buyers cannot "offer prices to, or accept prices from, factories such that factories would be without the financial wherewithal to maintain safe workplaces and comply with upgrade and remediation requirements." A central part of this is educating workers on how they can protect their rights and their safety, including their right to refuse unsafe work without being fired.

In the wake of the Bangladesh fire, an increasing number of individuals and organizations are calling for all major apparel companies to take action regarding factory safety. Nearly 100,000 people have signed a petition on Change.org calling on Walmart, H&M and Gap to join the independent Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement mentioned above.

A similar petition on SumOfUs.org has generated over 200,000 signatures to Walmart, the major buyer of apparel from Tazreen Fashions which burned on November 24. These petitions were hand-delivered to Gap and Walmart corporate offices on December 14. Walmart, H&M and Gap have yet to sign the agreement.

*1/28/13 CORRECTION: A PR representative for Gap Inc. - Sean Piazza of Apco Worldwide - brought an error of fact to our attention in this article. Our reporter's original statement above "Similar events took place in front of the Boston- area Walmart, Gap, and other H&M locations, all retail chains that were supplied by the Bangladeshi factory where the fire took place" was incorrect. In fact, according to the anti-sweatshop watchdog organization Clean Clothes Campaign, it is true that Gap Inc. was not contracting work from Tazreen Fashions last November when that Bangladeshi factory suffered a fire where 112 Bangladeshi workers burned to death. A fire that worker advocates charge was due to a lack of independently-monitored safety procedures. However, Gap Inc. was contracting work from That's It Sportswear, another Bangladeshi factory, when 29 Bangladeshi workers burned to death in a fire there in December 2010. A fire that worker advocates charge was also due to a lack of independently-monitored safety procedures. Furthermore, Clean Clothes Campaign has stated that Gap Inc. reneged on a Memorandum of Understanding with worker advocates to agree to only use Bangladeshi factories that have independently-monitored safety procedures last October. The apparel giant plans to continue to use the same self-regulatory approach that has failed to save the lives of hundreds of Bangladeshi factory workers in recent years. Like the workers at That's It Sportswear that fell "to their deaths from the upper floors of the building because locked stairway doors barred their escape." We thank Mr. Piazza for contacting us, and have made the appropriate corrections to this article. As ever, Open Media Boston strives to be fair and accurate in all our reporting and editorial writing.
For more information, check out the Clean Clothes Campaign website.
-Jason Pramas, Editor/Publisher, Open Media Boston