Charred human beings, mostly women, unrecognizable, burned to death behind locked doors. When alarms sounded, the bosses yelled that nothing was wrong. “Go back to work,” they said.
Outrage does not begin to encapsulate the reaction to the horrific deaths of garment workers in the Walmart-contracted Tazreen Fashions Ltd. Factory fire. One Struggle mourns the loss of these young lives. Most of the workers were 18-22 years old. At least 500 workers have died in garment factory accidents in Bangladesh since 2006. Workers who organize against these horrific conditions are fired, jailed, and killed.
We support the fury of those who take the streets. As Bangladeshi labor organizer and former factory worker, Kalpona Akter states, “We need these jobs, but, it is really time to say and let well known that we need these jobs with dignity. We need these jobs with a safe working place. Our workers working here…, working for the Westerners… did not give any license to anyone to kill them…”
Globalized capitalism/imperialism allows capitalists in the garment
industry to view the globe as two separate sections. They see Asia as one option, and Central/South America/the Caribbean as their other option. But usually they utilize both. They ping-pong their business from one country to the next, pitting nation against nation in competition with one another for who can provide the most favorable terms and the lowest possible compensation for workers. This is the nature of capitalism: exploitation of the working class for the extraction of surplus value.
Garment workers in Bangladesh and Haiti produce clothing for Walmart for the lowest wages in the world. What if workers all across the globe coordinated their demands for a fair living/minimum wage and healthy working conditions? What if they blocked capitalists’ ability to ping-pong and took back some of that surplus value? An anonymous fashion industry insider recently said, “You would be surprised how many big companies have all of their eggs in one basket, in one factory, or in one country (or two countries max). They are not agile. It would take them 12 weeks, at least, to change factories—-so they could be held over the ropes for up to 10-11 weeks.”
One Struggle supports workers’ struggles for fair wages and safe working conditions as a given. All people working deserve safe conditions to do so. Their wages should afford them food, shelter, education, a good quality of life. Additionally, we see the potential of a global living/minimum wage campaign to strike a major blow to capitalists’ accumulation of surplus value and to forge a path towards a strong, autonomous international working class movement.
We seek to amplify and popularize the demands of workers worldwide and to facilitate connections among mutual struggles. One Struggle has formed the Rapid Response Network with the purpose of offering prompt solidarity and support to the struggles of workers against exploitation and repression, and to alert groups and individuals of situations that could benefit from immediate attention. Our aim is to coordinate our efforts with workers with whom we have organized ties and a certain level of political unity, to publicize and build support for their struggles, under their guidance and in their interests. Click here to learn more and to get updates.
With those lost in the Tareen factory fire in our hearts, we will work to amplify the voices and demands of workers worldwide.
– One Struggle Collective
