I read this NYTimes article on the latest news since the collapse of Rana Plaza in Bangladesh killing garment factory workers. Aside from the Bangladesh Accord to improve work safety in Bangladeshi garment factores, a US$40 million fund has been created by retailers (note that not all retailers signed up for this) and prominent retailers to help the families of those killed.
This article has raised three questions in me:
a) Whose responsibility is it to protect the workers? The Bangladeshi government, the factory owner, the retailer or the buyer?
b) Are the garment workers willing workers? Sometimes media reports the workers as being enslaved. I am not sure about the situation in Bangladesh, but friends in Southern China say that migrants from Chinese villages flock to these factories in China for better pay and a way out of poverty.
c) What about the work safety in garment factories in other countries?
What do you think?
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