Cheap/inexpensive clothes are good. Where once the great many on very modest means would have had to take especial care of often literally shoddy garments as the Mrs. Jellybys of the world were well garbed, now three t-shirts can be bought for £10.
Relying on sweatshops in buildings which are both literally and figuratively are collapsing around occupants’ ears is bad.
Following the catastrophic collapse of the Rana Plaza in Dhaka – producing garments for many established names in the economy sector, including Primark – in which hundreds are feared to have died, the building owners have been arrested for failing to respond to direct reports of its unsound structure and Police orders; just as arrests occurred following a similarly deadly fire at another Dhaka garments factor in November 2012 has resulted in arrests of supervisors accused of blocking escape routes.
Both of these may come to nowt, however, as arrests following the last major building collapse in 2005 (when almost 100 died) were not ultimately pursued.
The need to balance access to affordable garments with avoiding acts of moral abjuration towards disreputable local practices does not appear reconcilable, as Bangladeshi officials have stated state the Rana Plaza was in clear breach of domestic regulations; and there were accommodations given to employment rights as a nursery had been provided for working mothers. Irresponsible construction standards are not restricted to firms supplying Western markets, as a concurrent residential building collapse in the Thane district of Bombay demonstrates.
(The second point is, course, moot in the face of the lack of concern for building safety, and has added to heart-rending scenes of large numbers of children being amongst the dead.)
Without a domestic garments industry to speak of in this country – efforts by free marketeer wide-boy, Tony Caldeira notwithstanding – reliance on producers in Dhaka and elsewhere will continue, just as fridge freezers are now more likely to come from such locations with the almost definitely final the closure of the last remaining UK producer IceTech aka Norfrost.
