The fast-fashion industry has long been known for exploitative practices, which have continued during the pandemic, despite the health risk to garment workers. “Fashion masks,” substitute actual protection for mere simulation.
Five years ago, he multistory Rana Plaza building, which housed garment factories outside Dhaka in Bangladesh, pancaked from structural defects that had been identified the day before. 1,134 garment workers were killed and thousands more injured in Bangladesh.
How can a global garment value chain that relies on the systemic devaluation of female labour be expected to fulfil promises of empowerment for women informal workers? It can’t. Here’s why.
Garment Worker Center and Others
UCLA Labor Center
In collaboration with the Garment Worker Center and UCLA Occupational Safety and Health (UCLA LOSH), the UCLA Labor Center just released Dirty Threads, Dangerous Factories: Health and Safety in Los Angeles’ Fashion Industry. The study finds that fast fashion, an approach that moves garments from design to shelf at an accelerated pace, leads to dangerous working conditions for garment workers.
For millions of American workers across the country, the cool air of the fall season promises to bring relief from intense heat on the job. In California, however, the persistent autumn heat wave brings along with it dangerous wildfires and also dangerous working conditions.
INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION
INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION
International and European trade union bodies are calling on the European Union to bolster action on workers’ rights and safety in Bangladesh’s garment industry. The Bangladesh government has failed to implement vital labour law reforms, and a compensation fund for victims of the Rana Plaza disaster still remains US$ 9 million short of the target.
Julia Wang and Morgan Currier
USAS | United Students Against Sweatshops
Student Campaign Forces 16 Universities to End Contracts with JanSport/North Face and Parent Company VF Corp Over Sweatshop Abuses in Bangladeshi Garment Factories.
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