A Triangle Shirtwaist-Like Disaster, Buried By the U.S. Press

[Hannah Bell]

The Consumerist has a fascinating post asking whether we’ve really eliminated our Triangle Shirtwaist Factory disasters or if we’ve just outsourced them. It turns out that a sweatshop in Bangladesh that made clothes for The Gap, Abercrombie & Fitch, JC Penney, Target, and others, suffered an eerily Triangle-like disaster just a few months ago...

Of course we shouldn’t take one anecdote in Bangladesh as proof that we have a systemic problem with trade and our economy, but this is hardly an isolated event. One book put the factory-fires death toll at more than 300 from 1990 to 2005. Bangladeshi labor advocates put the toll at 400 just since 2006. But what’s particularly interesting for journalists is how the almost-nonexistent coverage of this story raises serious questions about what we know and how well the press keeps us informed about the consequences of our economy.

Kernaghan says workers at Triangle made 14 cents an hour in 1911 (or $3.18 today). At Bangladesh’s Hameen factory, workers made, at most, 28 cents an hour. Let that sink in for a minute....

I’ve talked before about how so-called free trade is all about arbitrage: Environmental arbitrage. Labor arbitrage. Regulatory arbitrage. Tax arbitrage. Press arbitrage is no small factor, either. How disastrous would the PR have been for The Gap, Abercrombie, et al, if the factory with locked exits that killed twenty-nine workers sewing our clothes had been in the U.S. and not in Dhaka? Think about that the next time you’re walking into The Gap...

http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/a_triangle_shirtwaist-like_dis.php


arbitrage:

The process of purchasing and selling the identical products, such as foreign exchange, stocks, bonds and other commodities, in several markets intending to make profit from the difference in price. Arbitrage is generally seen as a "risk-less" transaction.

globaledge.msu.edu/resourcedesk/glossary.asp

•Involves a purchase in one market and a sale in a different market or different underlying asset to capitalise on what appear to be temporary distortions in price. ...
www.asx.com.au/about/sfe/glossary.htm

[ReggieVeggie]

1. kick

[malaise]

2. K & R

Apparently it is OK to sweep all atrocities overseas - torture, slave labor, lack of safety at the work place, human trafficking, pollution etc.

[ck4829]

3. Truly despicable and tragic that ANYONE works under these conditions today

It doesn't matter if you're in the US or Bangladesh, you should feel secure with your life in your job and your job should also provide financial security for you as well.

K&R

[xchrom]

4. recommend

[baldguy]

5. American businesses have always exploited workers.

They just don't do it where they can get caught anymore.