The Toll of Cheap Clothing

Three years after the Rana Plaza disaster, work conditions are still substandard—and garments even cheaper.

- Vauhini Vara

In April 2013, when the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh crumbled and killed more than a thousand garment workers, Western clothing executives were chastened. They were the ones, after all, who’d been pressuring Bangladesh’s apparel factories to cheaply reproduce runway trends for consumers in the U.S. and Europe who’d grown used to $10 dresses. Following the accident, H&M, Zara, Walmart, Gap, and other major brands announced they’d fund and oversee factory inspections in Bangladesh, demanding improvements from facilities that fell short and cutting off business with those that didn’t get better. Bangladesh, with the help of the United Nations’ International Labour Organization (ILO), created its own inspection program and vowed to shut down unsafe facilities. Better vigilance, everyone figured, would be central to preventing similar accidents from happening again.

Three years have passed, and an uncomfortable truth is emerging: Vigilance isn’t enough. Factories in Bangladesh have improved, completing more than 60 percent of fixes required by the inspectors sent by clothing brands. Still, of some 1,600 factories covered by the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, a major inspection program run by the brands, more than 80 percent are behind schedule on improvements. Factories in a smaller brand-organized program, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, have also lagged. The government, too, has made limited progress: It’s shut down just 39 facilities that posed an “immediate” danger to workers. Meanwhile, the corporate and government investigators, along with outside organizations, keep finding defects: faulty sprinklers, exit stairwells used for storage, missing fire doors.