While the April, 2013 collapse of Rana Plaza, which killed 1,129, led a number of retailers to implement sustainability and social responsibility programs, according to a new study published by NYU’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, garment workers are still just as at risk today as they were four years ago.
Conducted by Sarah Labowitz and Dorothée Baumann-Pauly, the study found that since October, 2015, 3,425 inspections have taken place in Bangladesh, but only eight factories passed. Conditions are equally poor in areas of the EU as well. Garment workers in Romania, for example, are some of the lowest paid in the European Union, and face, “hazardous conditions, poor legislation, a lack of transparency in production lines and the brands’ denied responsibility.”
Labowitz and Baumann-Pauly’s study goes on to explain that the upgrades necessary to make factories safer are extremely costly, with the average price being in the $250,000 – $350,000 range. And that, “brands see it as the suppliers’ responsibility to pay for these expensive… repairs.”
Ultimately, as long as there’s a demand for fast fashion, and it’s rapidly – and cheaply – made wares, “the lives the industry employs [will remain] just as disposable as the collections it churns out.”
You can read more about it at DW.
