Disney, Sears used Bangladesh factory that burned, killing 112
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) - Clothing and order books found at a Bangladeshi factory where a fire killed 112 people show that it was making clothing for Disney, Wal-Mart, Sears and other Western brands.
Associated Press reporters looked through clothing and documents connected to the retailers Wednesday while police announced the arrests of three factory officials who are suspected of locking in workers who were killed in Saturday's fire.
Piles of children's shorts from Wal-Mart's Faded Glory brand were found among the charred equipment at the Tazreen Fashions Ltd. factory. Blue and off-white shorts from rap star Sean Combs ENYCE label were piled on the floor and stacked in cartons.
Entries in account books in the abandoned factory showed it took orders in recent months to produce clothes for Disney and Sears, despite the factory's spotty safety record.
Calls made to The Walt Disney Company and to Sears Holdings were not immediately returned.
Wal-Mart has said the Tazreen factory was making clothes for the retail giant without its knowledge. Wal-Mart, which had received an audit deeming the factory "high risk" last year, said it had decided to stop doing business with Tazreen, but that a supplier subcontracted work to the factory anyway. Wal-Mart said it stopped working with that supplier on Monday.
Workers who survived the fire say exit doors were locked, fire extinguishers didn't work and managers had told them to go back to work after the fire alarm rang. A fire official has said that far fewer people would have died if there had been just one emergency exit.
Local police chief Habibur Rahman said three factory officials, but not the owner Tazreen Fashions - were arrested and will be questioned about the fire amid reports that many workers trying to escape the blaze had been locked inside. The officials were arrested Wednesday at their homes in Savar, the Dhaka suburb where the factory is also located.
Rahman did not identify the factory officials or give their job status.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Interior Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir have said arson is suspected. Police say they have not ruled out sabotage.
Local TV reports said about 3,000 garment workers held protests over the fire Wednesday, blocking roads and throwing stones at some factories and vehicles. It was the third straight day of demonstrations, and as they did previously, factories in the area closed to avoid violence.
Police used batons to disperse the protesters, but no injuries were immediately reported.
According to local television, most factories in the area closed after opening briefly because of the protests - a common tactic to avoid violence.
Associated Press reporters looked through clothing and documents connected to the retailers Wednesday while police announced the arrests of three factory officials who are suspected of locking in workers who were killed in Saturday's fire.
Piles of children's shorts from Wal-Mart's Faded Glory brand were found among the charred equipment at the Tazreen Fashions Ltd. factory. Blue and off-white shorts from rap star Sean Combs ENYCE label were piled on the floor and stacked in cartons.
Entries in account books in the abandoned factory showed it took orders in recent months to produce clothes for Disney and Sears, despite the factory's spotty safety record.
Calls made to The Walt Disney Company and to Sears Holdings were not immediately returned.
Wal-Mart has said the Tazreen factory was making clothes for the retail giant without its knowledge. Wal-Mart, which had received an audit deeming the factory "high risk" last year, said it had decided to stop doing business with Tazreen, but that a supplier subcontracted work to the factory anyway. Wal-Mart said it stopped working with that supplier on Monday.
Workers who survived the fire say exit doors were locked, fire extinguishers didn't work and managers had told them to go back to work after the fire alarm rang. A fire official has said that far fewer people would have died if there had been just one emergency exit.
Local police chief Habibur Rahman said three factory officials, but not the owner Tazreen Fashions - were arrested and will be questioned about the fire amid reports that many workers trying to escape the blaze had been locked inside. The officials were arrested Wednesday at their homes in Savar, the Dhaka suburb where the factory is also located.
Rahman did not identify the factory officials or give their job status.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Interior Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir have said arson is suspected. Police say they have not ruled out sabotage.
Local TV reports said about 3,000 garment workers held protests over the fire Wednesday, blocking roads and throwing stones at some factories and vehicles. It was the third straight day of demonstrations, and as they did previously, factories in the area closed to avoid violence.
Police used batons to disperse the protesters, but no injuries were immediately reported.
According to local television, most factories in the area closed after opening briefly because of the protests - a common tactic to avoid violence.
How, in this day and age, could we have factory managers locking people inside? This news story is oddly reminiscent of a chapter about child labor in my US History book. Oh, right, some countries are still behind our times and big businesses send labor out of America to save from paying fair wages. If they're men, those three should be strung up by the balls in public.
These people only made about $.21 per hour they worked, that's it no benefits. So with shipping of the garments cost these companies around $2.00. We all know how Wal-Mart takes care of their workers, we all know that Sear's has been over charging for a 100 years, and I just wonder what Walt would think of Disney any more.
 @DDG And in the economy of Bangladesh what exactly is a living wage or average wage?Â
 @Citizen#3457899654  @DDG The average factory worker makes $36 a month.  Milk, bread, eggs and rice cost $3.29-no meat, butter or cheese included here.
Rent, 1 bedroom $190.00 a month.
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Do you think they are over paid for Bangladesh?
It's odd no one hasmentioned the shoe & garment factory that burned on the same day in Pakistan last year. I believe almost three hundred people died in those two fires in very similar circumstances. Tragic. Too bad we can't export building codes and safety regulations with our jobs.Â
I'm not sure from this story why the companies named are on the hook for the fire. Did they own the building and who inspects fire codes?
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On the other hand, Wal-Mart does not pay their own US employees fair wages equal to profit. They want them to work on Thanksgiving-I wonder if the Wal-Mart owners work that day.
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Please note I did mention Sears or Disney-they seem to treat thier employees a bit better.
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Employees are what makes a company good and profitable. Companies should not act like they're you a favor by giving you a job. Yet this seems to be the case for the past 12 years.
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They ship the jobs over to sweat shops and cut American pay and benefits to the point of wiping out the middle class.Â
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Those who yearn for the 50's again  but not the workers pay that created a strong middle class. Wal Mart CEO pay has risen 300% and employees flat lined and hours cut.
Manufacturing clothing in Bangladeshi sweatshops is the only way retailers can profitably sell the garments for what Americans are willing to pay for them. We want everything but are unwilling to pay for it. This is true of everything from government to consumer goods. We shriek patriotism until we actually have to pay for it - that's how long the "Made in USA" chants last before they go dead slient. So before we point the dirty end of the stick at Walmart, Disney, etc, we have to accept that it is demand that drives supply, and not the other way around.
 @wysoumible When one company goes out and supplies goods at a cost unattainable by paying fair wages and having a standard of work environment safety, the rest of retailers are either forced to produce their goods at the new lower price or risk going out of business.
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We as consumers naturally look for the best price, but in my mind it ultimately falls on businesses to bring what they sell to the table without harm to their employees. If it costs $35 for a citizen to make a decent pair of jeans in America, I will pay that. But if a decent pair of jeans is on sale for $19, I'll buy them. It is the businesses responsibility to control their costs
@wysoumible That's not true. It is how they maximize profits. It is not the only way to make a profit. They could have tripled thier wages and abided by safety regulations and building codes ... and still made a profit. Just not an obscene profit. Might have trimmed down the size of their private jet or fifth paradise villa ... completely unacceptable.Â
 @ZebraWii  @wysoumible China is our top manufacturing partner and the conditions and wages there are pathetic and yet ALL our stores are filled with things made in China. I try to buy American or Canadian made and many things cost A LOT more money so I can't always make that choice. And people get uncomfortable when you want to talk about the part people here generally leave out...the obscene exploitation of the poor by the corrupt business elite of any of these other countries you want to name. They make anything you want to say about Sears or Disney look like amateur hour.
Aww so it matters that they were making these clothes because there because fire ONLY happens in these countries. There's NEVER been a fire EVER in the USA apparently.Â
@PortSCUM http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harold-meyerson-wal-marts-strategy-of-deniability-for-workers-safety/2012/11/27/8e59f88c-38c6-11e2-8a97-363b0f9a0ab3_story.html?hpid=z2 Harold Meyerson, in this Washington Post op-ed piece, cites a very similar fire in the US about a century ago. He contrasts the two by pointing out that that fire obviously received lavish media exposure that this recent tragedy simply did not and does not generate. We're too detached from events like that to really be impacted by them. One of his points is that Walmart is also so detached, claiming that this is a banned supplier which was, unknown to Walmart, subcontracting for one of its approved suppliers. He suggests that those layers of separation are intentional and their purpose is to insulate Walmart from precisely this type of event. As the documentary title goes, it's the "high cost of low price."
 @wysoumible  @PortSCUM I work at a local high tech company that touts their commitment to employing people legal for work in America. They turn around and contract out all the jobs that need to be done so that the contractor can then hire the cheap immigrant labor without liability falling on the main company.Â
 @PortSCUM In America we have worker protections and safety laws to limit loss of life in the case of fire- that's the main difference.
Just a thought, but how about those companies actually build factories here, hire American workers and bring back the "Made in America" label? Our family tries to buy from smaller local companies even if it means paying a little more, but at least it's a higher quality(most of the time) and it's supporting American workers therefore benefits our own country.
 @Robinsnest Nobody would buy the products because the price would be too high.
 @Keysontheright I'd buy it and I know many people that would as well.
 @Keysontheright  @Robinsnest It is still morally wrong to have kids working their butts off in sweatshops under unsafe circumstances so the average American idiot can buy their designer crap and fill their empty lives with sweatshop products
 @Larry*X*K  @Keysontheright  @Robinsnest Larry, you are absolutely right and I agree with you. The problem is we are now surrounded by these kinds of products and have been turned into a consumer society. We have a lot of work to do to try to fix that.Â
It would be easy to blame these big corporations for this and maybe they should be to blame, but I hardly believe they have any staff there to ensure U.S. safety codes and adhered to. After all this wasn't in the U.S. which is why they send business there. It's cheap. The workers work ten times harder then the average American worker for ten times less pay and thank the company for the job. It's sad their own country treats them this way. It wasn't Sears or Wal-mart that locked them in to die. It was their fellow Bangladeshi countrymen that did it. I have an Indonesian maid that used to work in a NIKE sweatshop and her pay was 17 cents U.S. a month. 17 CENTS!! How much does a pair of NIKE shoes cost? These are the companies that are doing wrong. They direct hire these foreign workers and not sub contracting.
 @Barlion Very true - the governments of the other countries should take action to protect their people from business sharks.