[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 8006-8007]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               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, I recently returned 
from a trip to Bangladesh where more than 1,100 garment workers died 
and 2,000 were injured in the Rana Plaza building collapse on April 24. 
Many Americans may remember the horrible pictures of workers being 
buried under tons of concrete from the collapsed building.
  I learned a great deal about what must be done to improve safety 
conditions in the garment industry there. Bangladesh is the second 
largest garment-producing nation, employing over 4 million skilled and 
industrious workers, mostly women, at a minimum wage of $37 a month. I 
learned that many factories have continued to operate in unsafe 
residential or multistory commercial buildings even after the Rana 
Plaza collapse. I learned more about poor conditions created by a 
myriad of middlemen hired by retailers that pit one factory against the 
next, squeezing out the last few pennies per garment. I learned that 
Bangladesh garment workers subsidize those low prices with their lives.
  I visited the hospital where there were scores of women, many with 
amputated legs and arms or who were suffering from brain damage from 
the collapse of that building where they were working and where they 
were locked inside. I met with a woman near Rana Plaza who was looking 
for her son even though the unidentifiable or the unclaimed workers had 
been buried in a mass grave.
  And Rana Plaza is not an isolated case.
  I visited with seven courageous women injured in the Tazreen Fashions 
factory fire that killed 112 workers last November. There were seven 
women who had to jump from the third and fourth floors of their factory 
because the factory supervisors locked the exits after the fire had 
started and had told them to go back to work or they would be fired, 
and the doors were locked. That was the policy of that factory and of 
many other factories. Just this week, we saw poultry workers in China 
locked in a factory after the fire had started; and they, too, perished 
in the fire. These were seven women who had to make the decision to 
jump from the third and fourth floors of this factory to save their 
lives. Tazreen produced garments for Walmart and many other American 
brands.
  Listen to what the women told me:
  Rehana jumped from the fourth floor window and was knocked 
unconscious. She broke her leg, and the doctors told her she will need 
to be on crutches for the rest of her life.
  Reba was the breadwinner in her home. She jumped from the third 
floor. She cannot work because of the pain. Her husband is sick. She 
has two sons, one of whom just qualified for the military college, but 
she doesn't know if she can afford to keep him there; and until I 
prodded Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers Export Association, Reba had 
not received the promised stipend for those who were injured--6 months 
later.
  Rowshanara jumped from the third floor and still has severe pain in 
her back and legs. She was visibly in pain after sitting too long while 
talking to us. She is single and gets by on loans. She has two teenage 
sons in school and doesn't want to force them to go to work, but she 
worries how she will get by.
  Deepa worked on the third floor. She saw the fire, and tried to 
escape to the second floor. The factory manager padlocked the door and 
told everyone to keep working. Workers were crying and searching for a 
way out. A mechanic yelled to come to the east side of the building 
where he had created an exit. She jumped from the third floor and fell 
unconscious. She broke her left leg. She was 4 months pregnant, and she 
lost her baby.
  Sumi decided to jump from the third floor rather than perish in the 
factory because she wanted her family to be able to identify her body, 
and that wouldn't happen if she were consumed in the fire. She broke 
her leg and arm and could not move. Her family borrowed money to pay 
for her medical bills before the association funds arrived. Two weeks 
before Rana Plaza, she came to the U.S. to urge retailers and brands to 
join the enforceable and binding Accord on Fire and Building Safety.
  Nazma said she would have died if she had waited 10 more minutes to 
jump. She saw the manager locking the gate to the second set of stairs 
and grabbed him by the collar to stop him, but he ignored her. She cut 
her arms while trying to get through a window to reach the bamboo 
scaffolding. She broke her backbone. She can't carry anything or do 
housework. She has three children. Her stipend went to medical care and 
to her children's education. Her 14-year-old son has had to leave 
school to try to find work.
  I am grateful that these women had the courage to tell me their 
stories.
  There is widespread agreement that if the Tazreen fire and the Rana 
Plaza collapse workers had had the right to refuse unsafe work, they 
would be alive today. Nobody, not even the factory, denied that that's 
the case; but for too long, the Bangladesh Government has blocked new 
unions. Only now, in facing the potential loss of trade preferences, 
the government has opened the door a crack. Twenty-seven new unions 
have been registered recently, reversing the trend in which only one 
union per year was registered, and there are 5,000 factories.
  I met the leaders of some of these newly formed unions--young and 
serious workers--but only time will tell if the government lives up to 
its promise of union rights. In addition, the Obama administration will 
soon conclude its review of Bangladesh's trade benefits under the 
Generalized System of Preferences. In my view, these preferences should 
be suspended.
  The one message I have for the American holdouts who won't agree to 
these

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safety accords is: listen to the women from Bangladesh.

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