[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 171 (Wednesday, December 4, 2013)]
[House]
[Page H7451]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           ACCOUNTABILITY FOR LABOR CONDITIONS IN BANGLADESH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. George Miller) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, a year has passed since 
the 112 garment workers--mostly women--were killed in a factory in 
Bangladesh that produced clothing for brands like Walmart, Sears, and 
Kmart.
  Earlier this year, I went to Bangladesh and met with women who leapt 
from the third and fourth floor windows of the factory to escape the 
fire. There is no good way to jump from that height. The women who 
survived the fall were broken, crippled, and unable to support their 
children.
  Since the Tazreen fire, several brands have stepped up with payments 
for survivors, and yet some of the companies that were presumably 
profiting quite nicely from production at the Tazreen factory have 
opted not to compensate a single victim.
  Walmart is one of those. They have chosen not to compensate a single 
woman who died in the factory, was crippled in the factory, had lost 
their job in the factory all because of the fire in the unsafe factory.
  The Tazreen factory was known as a deathtrap. Windows were barred, 
and the management locked the doors in the stairwells, leaving workers 
with no way to escape.
  Walmart knew this factory was a deathtrap. The company had 
commissioned a series of audits in 2011. Their audits uncovered that 
Tazreen was an overcrowded factory without proper fire alarms or smoke 
detectors, that it lacked sufficient fire fighting equipment, with 
partially blocked exits and stairwells, and did not post adequate 
evacuation plans.
  Because factory management failed to improve conditions, Walmart 
terminated the contracts with the factory. However, Tazreen factory 
workers continued to produce for Walmart, even though they terminated 
their contract.
  According to documents found in the ashes, more than half of the 
factory's total production was dedicated to Walmart just 2 months 
before the collapse. So while Walmart left the factory because it was 
unsafe, over half of the production, according to the documents, was 
still for Walmart, knowing they were producing in an unsafe factory 
that claimed the lives of 112 women.
  Walmart now claims that the Tazreen factory was an unauthorized 
subcontractor. Half of the work in the factory was there because 
supposedly Walmart, whose hallmark of efficiency is their supply chain, 
didn't know their subcontractor was placing these very significant 
orders in a factory that they abandoned and was also owned, overall, by 
another company that they were doing business with.
  I think Walmart is trying to construct a process so that they can 
deny the responsibility for the deaths of the women, the responsibility 
to pay maybe a benefit to those families who were crushed by the loss 
of their breadwinner, their mother, their sister, their wife. It is 
time to accept that responsibility.
  When Walmart terminated direct contracts at the factory, it never 
told the workers that it was leaving or why it was leaving.
  At a recent public forum, Walmart said that its only responsibility 
was to notify the factory owner, but that is like notifying a criminal 
that you are aware of his crime while you keep his next potential 
victim in the dark.
  Workers had no reason to suspect that Walmart walked away due to 
safety concerns because Walmart garments still dominated the production 
there. By quietly walking away and failing to tell anybody who could 
remedy the danger--workers, trade associations, and the government--
Walmart left the Tazreen factory vulnerable to a fire that would engulf 
them. The Walmart actions were calibrated to evade responsibility, and 
they put those women at risk.
  The pattern of evasion was repeated at Rana Plaza, where 1,132 
workers--again, mostly women--were killed when the factory collapsed 
earlier this year. Walmart claims it did not permit production there, 
but evidence found in the rubble of that collapsed factory shows that 
Rana Plaza was producing jeans for Walmart less than a year before the 
collapse.
  There is a theme here: when tragedies occur, Walmart claims 
production was not authorized as a way to disown responsibility. But 
every brand sourcing garments from Bangladesh knows that extensive 
subcontracting is part of the business model. That is how fast-fashion 
is produced.
  You can cut your direct dealings with a specific factory, but there 
is a chance someone in your supply chain is going to subcontract right 
back to that factory. The ethics are not complicated.
  The United Nations Principles on Business and Human Rights call upon 
multinationals to conduct due diligence through the many layers of 
their supply chains where the risks are the greatest to identify, 
mitigate, and prevent the problems.
  Had Walmart done that, maybe 1,000 women would be alive today and not 
have had a factory collapse on them. Maybe 112 women would be alive 
today. Maybe those women who had to jump out of the third and fourth 
floor windows to survive the fire would not be crippled today, would be 
able to support their families, and live somewhat of a normal life.
  Audits don't absolve companies of responsibility. If terminating a 
contract could lead to even greater harm, there is a special 
obligation, according to these recognized principles of the United 
Nations, to stay and remedy the problem. Brands have an obligation to 
both audit working conditions and to help remedy the risk of the most 
vulnerable in their supply chain.
  Walmart, accept responsibility, and start doing business in a humane 
way.

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