After nearly 3 weeks of extricating dead bodies and a few survivors from a collapsed 8-story building, rescue workers in Savar, Bangladesh called it a day. The final death toll was 1,127 human beings. An estimated 2,000 or more were injured.
This is not breaking news. The building went down during rush hour back on April 24th. Garment workers were ordered to their jobs despite the fact that dangerous cracks had been observed the day before. Benetton and, of course, Walmart were the two most recognizable names among the contractors who paid a paltry average according to the Associated Press, of $38 a month so the wretchedly poor could contribute to the Walton family collective fortune in the neighborhood of $100 billion.
You might recall there was a deadly fire at a facility just outside Dhaka (as is Savar) called the Tazreen Fashions factory, on November 24 of last year. A total of 112 workers gave their lives so the ubiquitous Walmart and running buddy Sears and other awesomely inhuman corporate kin could throw cheap rags on their shelves. The factory owner is in the cross-hairs as there will be some serious charges coming down on this one. You can bet none pointed in the direction of Walmart.
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Don’t stow your calculators just yet. On May 8, a late night fire killed 8 as smoldering acrylic poison gas suffocated those who were desperately running down stairs in vain attempts to escape. It could have been much worse as the factory was closed for the day. Some of the victims were attending a late-night meeting. Wouldn’t you know that our corporate friend Walmart contracts with this outfit too.
Bangladeshi officialdom is closing garment factories right and left promising safety reforms. Everybody involved is babbling about bringing all factories up to safety standards and treating workers like anything other than modern-day sweatshop field slaves. A Niagara Falls of other promises is washing over the print and electronic media as well.
But enough pure BS. For the reality of the global marketplace, Walmart and deaths notwithstanding, please hop aboard the mutli-national express for the 1,300 mile jaunt from Dahaka to Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
One thing even the most underpaid workers will do is, each in their own way, complain. Imagine; not doing back flips over $38 a month; $9.50 a week, $1.90 a day; a whooping 23.75 (I’ll be generous and round up to 24) cents an hour! Ungrateful bastards!!! While we’re here in Phnom Penh, how about we check in on some union (sorry, Right to Work states) members and their unsavory protests and strikes while earning at least twice that much. Now, according to Reuters, nearly 300 workers want $14 MORE BUCKS a month from their company, Sabrina Garment Manufacturing Corp, to help with expenses for transport, rent and health care costs. Nike is the big-name contractor for the company although Walmart has a major presence in the country as well.
Well, that $14 a month increase sh*t has got to cease. The obvious solution, escort these boys and girls out the door. So far at least 288 union workers have been forced out. This may be just the beginning as an estimated 4,000 of their number have forced their way into Sabrina, scuffling with scabs that refused to join the demonstrations. So for 7 cents a day, Sabrina is playing hardball.
Asking for a few extra cents is hardly an unfair request, but the Walmarts, Sears and Nikes are terrified that they might be backed into paying living wages. Think about this; the number one tool to keep U.S. wages down is to have the option of going to third-world countries and pay next to nothing. That’s why Right to Work states like mine are terrified of pissing off the likes of Boeing. Any hint of union organizing and management tells union pretenders that continued attempts at unionizing will result in Boeing pulling up stakes and taking their ball to one of the dozens of nations where they already have operations. That will work in South Carolina damn near 100% of the time.
Overseas, if these countries’ worker-slaves finally come out of the ether and demand enough money to raise their families and participate in some of the goodies that capitalism promises their adherents, then there goes the prime bargaining chip of pick up and move duress. As for strikes in Cambodia, they’ve been on the increase as workers use the only meaningful strategy they have to get a fair wage and reasonable benefits.
Those few American unions with anything left in the till should be rocketing to any country that has workers with the guts to stand up to corporate bullies and their foreign proxies. Otherwise, whether at home or abroad, it’s more of the same, only worse.
Exactly how many fires, building collapses, starving families, deaths, injuries and suicides will it take in the third-world mufti-national universe for reason to prevail? Reason being interpreted as corporations starting to act with something other than the selfish single-mindedness of climbing the rungs of Forbes “World’s Richest” ladder no matter who you have to throw off to get there.
Raised rural & small town, then lived in N.Y., Chicago & LA. Widely traveled. Returned from world wandering to pursue media life of anchorman/reporter and major, medium and small market talk radio. Highly active in politics. Once worked as orderly & security in Mens Lock Ward for the Criminally Insane at a state institution. Much more rational population than current Teapublicans. Great concern for country run by and for the extreme wealthy. The inhumane current running through this country has no precedent in modern history.
Follow me on Twitter @demwriter
