Editorial
Wal-Mart's welcome move
Factory improvements must be tangible
The move by Wal-Mart Stores Inc to provide up to $50 million in low-interest loans and other kinds of payment to garment factory owners in Bangladesh to help them improve factory conditions is surely welcome. One of course wishes that conditions had not come to such a pass and that RMG owners in Bangladesh had on their own taken precautions about workers' safety before tragedy, of the kind that took more than a thousand lives in the Rana Plaza collapse, struck the industry.
We cannot deny that the opprobrium we have earned abroad because of our treatment of garment workers and because of the many and varied incidents in garment factories over the years has certainly been a blow to our self-esteem. Such incidents have of course led to criticism in the West of those firms which have for long patronized our garment industry because of their failure to hold the RMG sector in Bangladesh to account.
Now that Wal-Mart as also Gap have pledged to come forth with financial assistance to RMG owners, we trust all efforts will be expended towards a tangible improvement in working conditions in our factories. That we have consistently failed to ensure workers' safety comes through the creation of the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety in North America. Let the alliance as well as Bangladesh's people now see the results of such outside concern as well as assistance.
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