What the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Has to Do with the Protest Outside the Ralph Lauren Shareholders Meeting Today
Protesters gathered today in front of the St. Regis Hotel in New York City to call on Ralph Lauren to sign onto the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh
to improve workplace safety for garment workers. The protest preceded
Ralph Lauren’s annual shareholders meeting where the AFL-CIO Reserve
Fund (its investments) had a proposal on the ballot related to human
rights reporting.
At today’s shareholder meeting, Nazma Akter,
president of the Sommilito Garments Sramik Federation, representing
70,000 workers, spoke to the protesters and called on Ralph Lauren join
with more than 180 brands that have agreed to participate in the Accord. The
Accord is a binding and enforceable agreement that represents a new
model in supply chain accountability and risk management. Other programs
to audit and monitor for workers' safety follow the same model that has
failed the hundreds of workers who have died in preventable garment
factory fires and building collapses over the past 20 years.
Akter
spoke in the name of “women like me, who produce goods for Ralph Lauren
in Bangladesh.” Young women are 80% of the garment workforce in
Bangladesh. Most of the more than 3,600 workers killed and seriously
injured in the April 2013 Rana Plaza factory collapse were young women.
Hundreds of children were orphaned when their parents were killed in the
collapse. But Rana is only the most notorious of recent deadly
workplace disasters in factories along the global supply chains of major
U.S. and European brands and retailers.
Rana Plaza reminded many of the Triangle factory fire in New York
more than 100 years ago that killed more than 100 workers yet eventually
led to improved workplace safety laws and enforcement and innovative
collective bargaining agreements. The changes after the Triangle factory
fire helped make what was once sweatshop labor into good jobs and a way
into the middle class.
Following the protest, Akter participated
in the Ralph Lauren shareholders meeting where she presented the
AFL-CIO Reserve Fund’s shareholder proposal, urging the company to
report to stockholders about how it assesses human rights risks. The
AFL-CIO Reserve Fund submitted the proposal after the company failed to
acknowledge or respond to written requests to sign onto the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.
Ralph Lauren has bought thousands of tons of goods from at least 15 locations in Bangladesh since 2007.
At
the shareholders meeting, Akter asked: “So why has a company that has
always stood for the highest quality not joined the accord?” She also
pointed out that workers in factories that have signed the accord are in
a better position to exercise other workers’ rights. “There are over
4,000 garment factories in Bangladesh. So far, 1,600 are covered by the
accord and workers in these are better protected. Workers have a union
at only 160 of those thousands of factories. Workers at factories
covered by the Accord and those who have a union could have refused to
enter Rana Plaza when they saw cracks. Workers must have Freedom of
Association to protect themselves and claim their full human rights.”
Unfortunately, workers who organize unions in Bangladesh are often fired, harassed or violently attacked.
Rana
Plaza should help major corporations realize that the current model of
cheap goods at any price through vast and unaccountable global supply
chains is often inhumane and unsustainable. Brands that want to act
responsibly must take concrete measures to improve respect for human
rights in the workplace.
BROADCAST UNION NEWS: Sean Mackell, Program and Field Coordinator and Brendan Griffith, Chief of Staff and Mobilization Coordinator of the New York City Central Labor Council were there, along with Robert Daraio, Local Representative from The N.Y. Newspaper Guild; Michael Garland, Assistant NYC Comptroller; Rev. David Schilling, Senior Program Director at the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility; and Robert McGarrah, Jr. from the AFL-CIO.