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Remembering Rana Plaza
April 24, 2024

Dear friends,

We write today on the eleventh anniversary of the global garment industry’s most devastating tragedy, the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which killed 1,138 workers and seriously injured over 2,500 others.

On April 23, 2013, one day prior to the Rana Plaza disaster, the building that housed five garment factories had been evacuated because large cracks had been found in its walls. Despite this clear warning sign, garment workers were forced to go back into the building the next morning so that factory owners could meet the order deadlines of their international brand buyers. Workers were threatened that if they did not return to work in the building, their wages would be withheld.

Today we once again express our solidarity with the survivors and families of those who were killed and injured in this preventable, human-caused catastrophe.

The devastation of Rana Plaza must be remembered and serve as a lesson to the brands and manufacturers who bear primary responsibility to prevent such tragedies and to eliminate the human and labour rights violations that continue to occur throughout their global supply chains.

It should not take the violent death and injury of thousands of workers or, as we have seen most recently in Bangladesh, the violent death of union leaders and workers defending their right to decent wages, for factory owners and the brands that source from their factories to change the way they do business.

Accord continues to improve health and safety, but worker struggles continue

The legally-binding Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, a signed agreement between unions and apparel brands and retailers established one month after the Rana Plaza collapse, was tremendously successful in ensuring worker health and safety. Today, its successor, the International Accord for Health and Safety in the Textile and Garment Industry is extending this model to other countries, the first being Pakistan where the Pakistan Accord will improve workplace safety in thousands of factories.

While the improvements to health and safety are notable, there is still much more to be done to ensure workers’ rights to freedom of association, decent work and a living wage in Bangladesh.

Violent crackdowns continue against workers and their union leaders who participated in the late 2023 protests for a minimum wage that would meet their basic needs.

In addition to improving workplace safety, global brands whose clothing is made in Bangladesh have a responsibility to ensure that the workers who make their products can organize unions and bargain collectively without fear of retaliation from employers and the government. And they must ensure that the prices they pay to their Bangladeshi suppliers are sufficient to allow those suppliers to pay workers a living wage.

Citizens and policy-makers are increasingly aware of the need to regulate companies’ behaviour, in part due to the Rana Plaza tragedy.

Activists, trade unions, and labour rights groups have called for binding obligations on companies and increased corporate accountability with proposed due diligence legislation in numerous countries around the world, including Canada.

Exactly 11 years after the collapse, the European Parliament is voting on the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive.

The proposed legislation will only cover the largest companies active in the EU, but, if approved, it nevertheless is an important step in holding brands accountable for their impact in global value chains and contributing toward the prevention of new disasters.

Lynda Yanz, for the MSN team
 
Factories are safer but worker rights violations persist

Read more about the efforts to improve worker health and safety in Bangladesh, as well as efforts to defend workers' rights to freedom of association and a living wage.
Read more
 
TAKE ACTION
 

Leave a solidarity message

Leave a commemorative message on the Rana Plaza Never Again site, expressing your solidarity in honour of those who were killed in the collapse 11 years ago.
 
Leave a message
 

Garment workers and their unions demand that Amazon sign the International Accord

The legally-binding agreeement and its predecessors have made a huge difference in thousands of factories in Bangladesh. According to the Make Amazon Pay campaign, "30 out of 33 of Amazon’s textile and garment suppliers in Bangladesh and Pakistan are covered by the Accord's stringent safety standards. Yet, Amazon refuses to commit to financially support the implementation of these standards."

Please take a minute to add your name to the letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy calling on Amazon to stop free-riding on worker safety and sign the Accord.
 
Call on Amazon to sign the Accord
 

Photo credits (from the top):
- People watch crews work after the Rana Plaza collapse (Pieter van de Boogert).
- Solidarity action in Pakistan for the 10-year Rana Plaza anniversary (HBWWF, NTUF).
- International Women's Day action in Bangladesh (BIGUF).
- Action for the 10-year Rana Plaza anniversary by Sri Lanka Women's Centre (CCC).
- Union members in Bangladesh call on the European Union to pass due diligence legislation (NGWF).
- Workers in Bangladesh organize for safe factories and ask brands to sign the Accord (BCWS).
- Commemorative Rana Plaza quilt (Taslima Akhter).
- Make Amazon Pay, Uni Global Union, IndustriALL campaign.
 

The Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN) is a labour and women's rights organization that supports the efforts of workers in global supply chains to win improved wages and working conditions. Please consider supporting MSN's important work by making an online contribution or by sending a cheque to the address below.

606 Shaw St.
Toronto, ON M6G 3L6
Canada

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