Booming RMG [ready-made garment sector] cares little for workers' life (Daily Star (Bangladesh))
"The goriest-ever garment factory disaster came on April 13 last year. The 9-story building of Spectrum Sweater and Knitting Factory in Savar collapsed with a resounding thud, crushing 74 workers to death and injuring over a hundred others, including 12 handicapped for life.
"'That was not an accident. It was a wilful violation of safety laws to increase profit,' ruled Kalpona Akter, secretary general and executive director of the Bangladesh Centre for Workers' Solidarity.
[...]
"The garment sector, which accounts for 75 percent of the country's export earnings, soars above any other sector in both frequency and scale of workplace mishaps.
"Yet, it continues to keep its 2-million-strong women-majority labour force toiling in the so-called factories, most of which are ultra-poor in safety. Whatever they may say in public or in paper, in practice the investors in the sector every day put the bulk of their employees at risk of death and physical harms, knowing well the dangers yet shirking rectification in order to maximise the profit. 'Well, it definitely smacks of crime,' said the outspoken Kalpona."
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