Front Burner - Why fast-fashion garment workers' lives are still at risk

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

 In 2013, Rana Plaza - an eight-storey garment factory collapsed in Bangladesh, killing over 11-hundred people.It's a tragedy that led to a lot of public anger towards the brands that made clothes there. Brands like Zara, Walmart, and Joe Fresh, owned by Loblaw. And at the time, Loblaw promised safe working conditions and fair wages.But ten years later has it followed through on those promises? The Fifth Estate's Mark Kelley tells guest host Daemon Fairless about the investigation.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Damon Fairless. The Sabar district, just north of Bangladesh's capital city, Dhaka, is home to hundreds of garment factories and around half a million garment workers. It also used to be home to Rana Plaza, an eight-story garment factory that collapsed in 2013,

killing over 1,100 people, mostly women, making it the most deadly garment factory accident in modern history. It was pure chaos. A giant plaza with a market and several clothing factories inside. During morning rush hour, it simply collapsed. For days, rescuers, some using their bare hands, tried to dig survivors out of the rubble. It's a tragedy that led to a lot of public anger towards the brands that made their clothes there. Brands like Zara, Walmart, and Joe Fresh, which is owned by Loblaw. At the time, Loblaw promised safer working conditions, fair wages.

But 10 years later, has it followed through on those promises? The Fifth Estate's Mark Kelly went to find out, and he's going to tell us about his investigation. Mark, it's good to have you back in the studio. Thanks for having me back. Let's go back in time. You were in Bangladesh 10 years ago after the Rana Plaza collapse. And then, of course, you went back now or, you know, went back recently.

Well, one of the first stops we made when we arrived in Bangladesh was to go back to Rana Plaza, back to the scene of the tragedy that had captured the world's attention. And when I was there, I was there a couple months after the tragedy itself. It was heartbreaking in a way because there were parents of some of the victims who came to me, like holding their children's ID badges and pressing them up to me because they were unable to find their bodies in the rubble. And they thought, you know, a Canadian journalist there with a TV camera, somehow we could uncover the answers that they had been unable to get for all that period of time. Now, fast forward 10 years later, we go back, and I was stunned to see what had become of it. It's an empty lot. It's used as an open toilet by people when we were

there filming, you know, their mounds of scraps of garments from neighboring garment factories that have been dumped there. And were it not for a tiny little tired monument, you would not know that this was the site of one of the worst industrial accidents of our time. It became, and my concern was that it was a metaphor for the lessons we were supposed to have learned. Were they forgotten with time? Have we just moved on, forgotten about the incident, and gone back to business? And then you were able to reconnect with someone that you spoke with

10 years ago initially, a woman named Shumi Akhtar. Can you tell me about her? What was it like to see her again? What was that reunion like for you guys? Well, it was a tough one to make happen because it was just tough to find her. It was tough to find her 10 years ago, and we'd seen her in some news reports at the time.

She'd been trapped in the rubble for days. What do you remember about the moment the building collapsed? When it collapsed, I thought I wouldn't survive. Two dead bodies fell on my leg and my leg was stuck there. The roof fell on top of the bodies. I didn't know then that I would actually come out alive. Her mother was trapped in the rubble and died. She would get out.

She was rescued, but she lost her lower leg. And we met her years ago. She was, at the time, 17 years old. She made Joe Fresh shorts. She used to sew 150 pocket seams an hour, and that was her job. But she told us then that after her injury, she was just too slow to work in fast fashion anymore. So we wanted to know how was she getting by. So when we finally tracked her down, we had this reunion and it was sad. I'm in a lot of pain now. I lost a leg, so it's very

difficult to walk with a child. This has been going on for 10 years. There was somebody who told me immediately that her life was a struggle. And in the years since then, there was just no hope. There was no optimism. And for her, there was just very little future. there was just very little future. They promised us to do many things that will last throughout our lives like health care, treatment,

and family expenses. We alone are feeling the pain. So what kind of compensation did Shumi receive initially after the collapse, after she lost her leg? From what we were told, she was given $12,000 as an initial payment. And since then, she receives about $100 a month from the government for lost wages. But just to put that into perspective,

she has this prosthetic leg, and she says every, you know, between every eight to 12 months, leg. And she says every, you know, between every eight to 12 months, she needs to replace that leg. And that leg alone costs about $1,200 a year. That's money that she says she simply doesn't have. And to put that in perspective, $1,200 a year is about the annual salary of a garment worker. And she is now unemployable. So again, this is just money she does not have. The premise here is to go back 10 years after this disaster. So one of the things you did on this most recent visit is you checked out the garment district there, a district called Savar, just north of the capital city, Dhaka. And as I understand, there's hundreds of garment factories there. So I guess I'm curious, what's life like there for the people living there and specifically for the people working in these factories?

You'd think that's a basic question where we could get an easy answer. What is it life like in an area where you've got as many as 500,000 garment factory workers. It wasn't that easy? It wasn't that easy. Because people were too afraid to talk to us. There was fear of being fired. There was fear of a backlash. There was a fear of being put on a blacklist that would make you unemployable.

And these are people, the vast majority of the women who are working there, the majority of the people working there are women. So many of them have come from the countryside to come in and get work. And the garment sector has given them that. But it's just so important for them. And it wasn't until we were on the ground and working with one of our colleagues who's a Bangladeshi journalist. He was able to finally arrange us to be able to talk to one brave woman who said, yes, I'll talk and I'll talk to you on camera. You saw her where she's living, right? Tell me about that.

She was living in a workers compound in Savar. We park our truck and we start unloading our equipment and walking down these alleys that are strewn with garbage, you know, with smells I don't want to even describe. And then as we go through this labyrinth, we finally find this woman, 24-year-old Lazina Akhtar. She makes pants for Joe Fresh. She's been working in a factory for about a year and a half. She works up to 70 hours a week, six days a week. And her life, too, has been very difficult. Even with working that much, she finds it very, very difficult to make ends meet. I am not happy.

You're not happy. You said she's working something like 60 hours a week. What's she getting paid? And I guess, how does that compare? At the time when we were there, it was the lowest, definitely, in the region. She was making about $100 to $120 Canadian dollars a month, not that much. And again, this is six days a week that she's working. We get a very small salary, around $100 to $120 a month, not that much.

And she was getting some support to get through by her family to make ends meet. Since my parents are still alive and they don't want their children to suffer, so they help. Now after we left, in November, the government would actually increase the minimum wage to its current level, and that's about $150 a month. If you start comparing it to Vietnam, for example, where the minimum wage, lowest minimum wage is $178, China or Cambodia, it's $274, according to the Clean Clothes Campaign. But if you look at what's considered a livable wage in Bangladesh, that's considered to be somewhere around the $600 wage. These workers are now making at the lowest level $150 a month. That is their reality. And that's why life is so unaffordable for so many

of these workers. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you.

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they both made clothes for Joe Fresh, which is owned by Loblaw. Loblaw is just one of a number of companies that used Rana Plaza to make its clothing. So I want to talk more about the current safety conditions, but just in a bit, I want to go back right now to 2013. What happened after the collapse? How did Loblaw respond at the time? Well, Loblaw reacted with shock and surprise. Looking back, I think what it revealed is they didn't know exactly what the working conditions were like for many of the people who were making their clothes in Bangladesh. Ten years ago, I was able to get inside a prison to interview a man who owned the factory, who was making $6 million a year making clothes for Joe Fresh. Joe Fresh was my biggest client, about $6 million a year. That's why I was going bigger. Everybody is doing this. They all squeezed me. But Joe Fresh was a very good customer.

Their policy was just ship it on time. I asked him to name one Loblaw employee who had ever been inside his factory to inspect it. He couldn't do that. So I think when Loblaw was saying that they were shocked and surprised by what happened there, it revealed the fact that they were using third-party inspectors who had that distance from the company. And I think that those, what time would reveal as well, those third-party inspectors were really going in there to make sure that the production process was working, as opposed to what were the working conditions like? What was fire inspection safety like? What was structural safety like? That was the problem. And that was what really came to light of so many

international brands, including Loblaw Joe Fresh. So after that collapse, LaBla CEO Galen Weston responded, remind me what he said. I'm troubled that despite a clear commitment to the highest standards of ethical sourcing, our company can still be part of such an unspeakable tragedy. Well, he wanted to make a series of commitments, including manufacturing clothing only in factories that meet all the local safety codes. Talking about fire safety, structural safety codes. He also wanted to pay long-term compensation for the victims of the collapse and paying fair wages for all the workers in its supply chain. So after this happened, there was an accord that came about. So that Loblaw sign, that brands like H&M, American Eagle sign, that's called the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, which is fairly self-explanatory. The idea is that it would force companies in Bangladesh to fix these problems or they'd lose business.

So tell me about that accord. What kind of impact did it have at the time? It was immediate and it was life-saving. It was the game changer because it allowed independent inspectors to go inside and do that structural safety inspection, the fire safety inspection. And it was eye-opening. And this is why I think companies like Lalabal were so surprised, because when the independent inspectors got in there,

they realized the task they had ahead of them. You know, one of the inspectors that we met, he's a Canadian, and he was leading the inspection. His name is Brad Lowen. He says when he first got there with his teams that they found 50 factories, 50 buildings that needed to be shut down right away. Because in their estimation, they were potentially the next Rana Plaza because of structural safety issues. They were ordering these buildings to be evacuated and shut down. They were ordering these buildings to be evacuated and shut down. And this revealed the lack of safety inspection that had plagued the industry for so long until Rana Plaza collapsed.

And was that effective? Like the people implementing this accord, they had the power to do that? They had the power to dry up business and put business on hold until these factories, you know, in essence, cleaned up their act. I would get calls from the sourcing people and saying, well, no, we're happy to pull out of that factory if you're saying it's unsafe. Our order should be done in two weeks, and then we will pull out. And I said, no, no, no, no. But they also had to learn quite quickly that yes, in fact, if these factories were that immediately dangerous, that they weren't going to finish their two week run of jeans or what have you that it was right now. And it was fire safety issues as

well. I mean, they were going into places where they found that the fire safety exits were padlocked, where you had mounds of boxes blocking fire safety exits. I mean, so many things. Brad Lowen was given a list of 1,700 factories in one year and said, go out there and do what you need to do. And they did that. So we would send in three teams of engineers. Over half of these factories had locks on their exit doors. And we made them cut them off.

And that was the game changer that happened because finally there was this independent, you know, policing agency, if you will, that was allowed to go in there. But with the way that it worked is you had the brands working with the independent inspectors and the unions. So they all worked together and it was very effective. But there was one key player left out of that. Those were the factory owners themselves. So needless to say, they didn't like it. Yeah. So tell me about that. Well, this accord comes in, it's effective, and then there's pushback. And it ends up being a victim of its own success because it was so successful in cleaning up the act or forcing the factory owners to clean up their act. The factory owners didn't like it. One factory owner would eventually

go to court. The case there was that they didn't really have the jurisdiction to be coming in and telling the factory owners, in essence, how to run their business. The court agreed, and the accord was essentially kicked out of the country. And one of the interesting things I found from your documentary, too, is that the ties between the factory owners and the government are pretty tight, right? Yeah. Ten years ago, I mean, when a lot of this was happening, about one in ten, about 30 of the 300 MPs actually own factories, garment factories. So, and to this day, I mean, some of their top cabinet ministers own factories. So that

relationship between the factory owners and the government, the people who are really calling the shots at the end of the day, was really inextricably linked. And that still has an impact on wages and on working conditions in that country. We had this period after the Rana Plaza collapse, where there was this infrastructure in place to basically look after worker safety, worker needs. Then it gets pushed back. You and your team at the Fifth decide you're going to check in 10 years later to see what things are like on the ground there. You want to see what things are like at the factories, where your fresh clothes are made.

What did you find? Yeah, there's a new, instead of the Accord, now there's a new audit agency called the RSC. And so it's the new sheriff in town and it's there. And it seems to have a different attitude. For one, the factory owners are now on the steering committee. So they're part of it. And it seems to have had, from what we are being told, an impact on the way that the inspectors are doing their business. There seems to be far more patience. So if you're finding some

serious fire safety issues, for example, we'll give you a little time. We'll give you a year. We'll give you two years. We'll give you three years to be able to fix these things. So we wanted to know just exactly, specifically when it came to the factories that are used by Loblaw. So we wanted to know just exactly, you know, specifically when it came to the factories that are used by Loblaw. So we analyzed the safety records. And the RSC, I give them credit that they published these safety records online. They're open there. So they were accessible for us. The safety records for 21 factories used by Loblaw called Meditex Industries.

Inspectors noted 31 fire-related violations between 2014 and 2023, including their fire escape stairs don't exit outside exit outside of the building they exit inside the building we took our findings back to brad lowen he's the canadian who was part of the accord and we wanted so we sent him to him we said brad what do you think about these and and he was deeply concerned he was deeply concerned on two levels a that these were were what he considered life-threatening issues, violations that were existing in these factories. And B, that it had taken, in some cases, seven years that they had been warned, seven years of being told to do something, and it hadn't happened yet. To not have them done that many years later is shocking. I mean, you can build and rebuild

buildings from scratch, obviously, in a lot less than eight years. So what did you do to better understand the significance of what you found on those safety records? We wanted to go to Meditex. Before we left for Bangladesh, we asked Loblo if they could help give us access. And they said they can't do that. I said, well, could you at least help make an introduction? And they said, no, we can't do that. I said, well, could you at least help make an introduction? And they said, no, we can't do that. So we just decided to show up ourselves.

That's what we wanted to talk to you about. And this is from the RSC. And these are the inspection reports. And you've had ongoing fire safety issues. And we explained to them that we were Canadians. You're making clothes for Canadians. There's a long list of fire safety issues that have been pointed out by the RSC, and we'd like to see if these issues have been addressed.

And the factory manager came down and he says, oh yeah, don't worry, things have been addressed. I said, well, that's not what these reports say. So we'd like to take a look for ourselves. Can you show us that these are... And we were not given access to the factory. In fact, we were shown the door. And once we got outside, things got tense.

We had a drone that was shooting the building. They attempted unsuccessfully to confiscate our drone. A crowd was gathering. It got a little uncomfortable. So we saw, you know what we're going to do. And we could see the workers looking through the barred windows. It was coming up to lunch. So we said, well, we'll stick around for lunch.

And when they leave, we'll talk about the workers. We wanted to know from the workers themselves, do you feel safe making clothes for Canadians? And were you able to? We never got the chance because we were then told by somebody that after we had gone in there and spoken to the factory manager, he addressed all the workers in the factory and said, whatever you do, don't stop to talk to the Canadians. So, I mean, you didn't, you weren't able to, you're prevented from looking at what you wanted to look. Now, I guess I'm curious what Loblaw has had to say about your findings. Well, we asked Loblaw when, about the findings that we had and, and, and they said, they sent us a statement. They, first of all, they wouldn't give us a, a, an on-camera interview, but they said that they had since stopped using two of the factories that we had noted that were problems in their supply chain.

And they added that, I'm quoting here, the work to ensure safe factories is an active and dynamic process and one that we take extremely seriously. Now, they say, and this is different from what it was 10 years ago, that they now have seven employees on the ground who can conduct their audits at each factory. And they went on to, in their statement, say they provided more than $5 million in compensation. They say they remain committed to transparency and accountability in their global supply chain, continue to collaborate with stakeholders, factory partners, and industry organizations to drive positive change and protect the rights and well-being of workers where our products are made, end quote. That from Loblaw. So Mark, it's been 10 years since the Rana Plaza collapse.

And since then, Bangladesh has doubled the amount of clothes they export. And despite that growth, the concerns that the tragedy raised haven't gone away. So garment workers and their advocates are out on the street. They're calling for higher wages. And you saw some of that when you were there reporting. So what message do they have for Canadian companies who have factories in Bangladesh? And I guess also for Canadian consumers who buy the clothes that are made there? Put it this way.

When we were in Bangladesh 10 years ago, Joe Fresh was running ads that say, well, we're selling t-shirts for $8. Right before we went to air 10 years later, we went into a local Joe Fresh store here in Toronto. They were selling t-shirts there for $8.94. That much later? 10 years later. Wow. Think about our lives right now and how inflation is now the story. Everything around us has increased in price.

How can it be that the price of a t-shirt has moved so little? In fact, if you adjust it for inflation, it's actually less than $8. So how could that be that is in fact going down? Well, the issue there is that if it's that cheap, it's that cheap for a reason. And that's what we just need to know as consumers, that there's a story with every garment that we buy. It's stitched into it itself. And if it's that cheap, it's that cheap for a story with every garment that we buy. It's stitched into it itself. And if it's that cheap, it's that cheap for a reason. And when it comes to the price squeeze, it's actually the workers who are at the bottom

of that food chain, of that price chain. They're the one who gets squeezed the most. Yes, the factory owners are complaining about getting squeezed. In fact, the factory owners say that international brands like La Blah Joe Fresh are not paying what they call ethical wages. I mean, the factory owners themselves are saying this, let alone what the workers are dealing with. And that's the story. That's the subtext. And there's this concern that people have on the ground there, that there are a

lot of, you know, statements about we want to do better. We care about the workers, we care about the people who make our clothes. But in the end, they're really just that's, it's part of what what some people told us over there, it's really just part of a PR campaign, more than really caring about the people who make our clothes. I think the brands really need to stop the double standard. You know, I think they talk about commitment to workers' rights only as a PR strategy, you know, because they don't want their woke consumers to have to deal with the guilt of buying from sweatshops in Bangladesh. I think the thing that struck me is that before I came into the studio, I took the shirt off

that I'm wearing, looked at the tag. I got this thing on sale for 25 bucks. Guess where it's made? Bangladesh. So your question, right? Like 10 years later, have we forgotten? I mean, I have to say I had. I knew this story.

Yeah, and of course we do. We cared at the time and it was the priority for consumers. It was the priority for brands. It was the priority, you know, internationally, globally, we've got to do better. And then we move on with our busy lives. And in this day and age, It was the priority for brands. It was the priority, you know, internationally, globally, we've got to do better.

And then we move on with our busy lives. And in this day and age, we're all looking for a great deal. And the important thing about Bangladesh is it's employing more than 4 million people. I mean, it is the backbone of their economy. And the majority of those employees are women. There have been huge, huge gains from the garment industry there. But that's not necessarily good enough. Mark, thanks so much for coming in and telling me about this.

It's great reporting and I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks. All right, that's it for today. I'm Damon Fairless. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.