[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 66 (Tuesday, April 24, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2382-S2383]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE RANA PLAZA FACTORY COLLAPSE IN BANGLADESH

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, 5 years ago today, the Rana Plaza 
building collapsed in Bangladesh, tragically killing more than 1,100 
people and injuring thousands more. Rana Plaza, a bustling multistory 
commercial building in Dhaka, had housed several ready-made garment 
factories, as well as banks and other businesses. When cracks appeared 
in the building facade the day prior to its collapse and some stores in 
the building accordingly closed up shop, owners of the garment 
factories inside Rana Plaza rather told their workers not to worry and 
ordered them to return for work the next day, but this was not a time 
for business as usual. Thousands of garment workers, the majority of 
them enterprising young women achieving new levels of financial 
independence for themselves and their families, filed back into the 
building the next morning. Thousands of them never made it back out. 
The world was rightly stunned and horrified by the images of the 
lifeless bodies of hundreds of young women being pulled from the rubble 
of this manmade disaster.
  The Rana Plaza tragedy could have been avoided, and it demonstrated 
that ``business as usual'' in Bangladesh's

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garment industry inordinately rewarded factory owners and managers, 
while ignoring factory workers' safety and rights. In the dusty rubble 
of the building collapse, it became crystal clear that the Bangladeshi 
Government, factory owners and managers, and the global apparel brands 
all had a grave responsibility to do more, and quickly, to secure the 
labor rights of Bangladeshi workers. A simple fact remains, 5 years 
later: Had the Rana Plaza workers been afforded the ability to organize 
and protect their interests, the tragedy never would have happened. 
With collective strength and action, they could have stood up to 
employers to demand basic rights, and they could have refused to be 
ordered back into the building without appropriate safety standards. 
Five years later, it is also clear that a great deal of work remains to 
secure these rights.
  As the son of a seamstress who worked in the textile factories of 
northern New Jersey, I knew from watching my mother how tiring and 
strenuous such work could be, but it does not have to be fatal. The 
United States' own Triangle Shirtwaist Fire more than a hundred years 
before Rana Plaza, which killed nearly 150 people, galvanized a 
necessary workers' movement and subsequent necessary reforms that to 
this day help protect labor rights while ensuring that American 
companies produce high-quality products. To this day, the AFL-CIO and 
other American labor unions work tirelessly to expose the conditions 
facing U.S. workers and to organize collective responses and inform 
government decisions to promote worker protections. Last year, for 
example, an AFL-CIO report revealed an alarming rate of workplace 
deaths among Latinos and immigrants to the United States and provided 
recommendations to the Department of Labor to address them. Along with 
many of my Senate colleagues, I am pushing for our government to adopt 
these recommendations. Put simply, the successes of American organized 
labor are inextricable from the prosperity of the American economy and 
have helped to boost the fortunes of countless American workers.
  We know that countries and people are more secure and prosperous when 
workers can operate in safety while pursuing economic success. The 
proud legacy of the movement for American workers' rights demands that 
we advocate for workers at risk around the globe. In the past 5 years 
since the Rana Plaza disaster, we have so advocated. We have come 
together in unprecedented ways to address the factors driving labor 
abuses against workers in Bangladesh.
  As chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee at the time of the 
Rana Plaza disaster in 2013, my first hearing explored the tragedy and 
the consequences of a race to the bottom that had increased companies' 
profit margins alongside risks to their workers. This was the first 
SFRC hearing focused on labor rights in more than a dozen years. I 
called another hearing early the following year to review progress in 
addressing the labor rights emergency in Bangladesh and conducted 
rigorous, bipartisan oversight to ensure that the U.S. Government was 
doing all it could to spur change among brands, owners, and Bangladeshi 
Government officials. This included a field visit and a November 2013 
majority staff report that examined progress in advancing workers' 
safety and labor rights since the Rana Plaza disaster and the Tazreen 
factory fire. We also worked closely with our colleagues on the 
Appropriations Committee to ensure that funds over 3 successive fiscal 
years were designated to directly support the development and capacity-
building of truly independent labor unions in Bangladesh that could 
safely and effectively advocate for worker rights.
  Meanwhile, major American retailers who produced apparel in 
Bangladesh, including Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle Outfitters, 
and Fruit of the Loom, joined the effort alongside other global brands, 
governments, civil society, and labor unions to grapple with the acute 
challenges facing Bangladeshi workers who produced their goods. The 
risk of undermined consumer confidence and declines in brand quality 
helped spur some corporations to join the Accord on Fire and Building 
Safety in Bangladesh--a 5-year, legally binding compact to improve 
safety in Bangladeshi ready-made garment factories through reasonable 
steps to prevent future disasters. Most importantly, the accord 
signatories included labor unions, who were rightly regarded as equal 
and critical stakeholders in effecting needed change. Five years later, 
accord brands have the opportunity to demonstrate a sustained 
commitment to worker rights by signing on to the 2018 accord. This 
iteration strengthens and expands the accord to cover freedom of 
association. Other groups, such as the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker 
Safety, have also helped to further galvanize American and 
multinational brands to take greater responsibility for ensuring worker 
safety in Bangladesh. In any such efforts, workers and their 
representatives must have a truly equal seat at the table, for without 
them we cannot make meaningful labor rights reforms.
  Governments have a critical role to play as well. Following Rana 
Plaza, the United States and other governments pressed Bangladesh to 
take meaningful steps to improve respect for labor rights in the 
country, including through removing Bangladesh from the generalized 
system of preferences and conducting regular reviews of the Bangladeshi 
Government's efforts to better adhere to international labor standards. 
I believe the U.S. Government can and should do more to ensure that 
developing countries with which our country trades are taking necessary 
steps to respect labor and human rights. I was proud last year to 
introduce the Labor Rights for Development Act with Senator Brown and 
the Anti-Trafficking Trade Act with Senator Portman that together would 
raise the labor and human rights standards countries must meet to gain 
preferential access to the U.S. market.
  Five years on, the progress made in Bangladesh is simply not enough. 
Factories throughout the country have failed to meet their binding 
commitments on workplace safety in the accord and the alliance, risking 
the departure of some global retailers to other markets. Independent 
unions in Bangladesh remain constrained and subject to increasing 
harassment and attacks on labor rights activists, which often occur 
with impunity. Amidst a growing climate of political tensions in 
Bangladesh, the government too often views independent labor unions as 
opposition dissenters to punish, rather than key partners that are 
vital to the country's growth and prosperity.
  In the 5 years since Rana Plaza, I have continued to believe that 
what happens in Bangladesh to improve labor rights and workers' safety 
can have a dramatic ripple effect on the global apparel industry and 
that real change in working conditions there can help to change 
conditions for workers everywhere in a race to the top, but similarly, 
if not enough happens in Bangladesh, it sends the message that workers' 
lives can still be systematically undervalued and that working to 
advance labor rights is an endeavor not worth the risk. That is the 
wrong message, and on this anniversary, we must recommit ourselves to 
pushing stakeholders in Bangladesh--whether government, brands, or 
owners--to continue a path of reform. To do any less harms not just the 
workers, but also Bangladesh's economic potential, because no one will 
want to wear clothes stained with the blood of workers.

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