{"id":1379828,"date":"2023-12-08T06:43:56","date_gmt":"2023-12-08T06:43:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/?p=307243"},"modified":"2023-12-08T06:43:56","modified_gmt":"2023-12-08T06:43:56","slug":"the-high-cost-of-low-holiday-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/12\/08\/the-high-cost-of-low-holiday-prices\/","title":{"rendered":"The High Cost of Low Holiday Prices"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2019Tis the season for holiday sales. But on the other side of the planet, there\u2019s a high cost for those low prices. This is especially true for \u201cfast fashion<\/a>,\u201d the clothing equivalent of a Big Mac: attractive, affordable, and throwaway.<\/p>\n

The Bangladeshi women who toil as underpaid garment workers so we can wear disposable outfits are making their voices heard loudly enough to reverberate across oceans. Mass protests<\/a> for higher wages have roiled the South Asian country.<\/p>\n

Bangladesh is the world\u2019s second-largest exporter<\/a> of apparel in the world, after China. Recognizable name brands<\/a> like H&M, Zara, Calvin Klein, American Eagle, and Tommy Hilfiger, among others, rely on Bangladeshi garment factories.<\/p>\n

The country\u2019s 4 million garment workers, most of whom are women, until recently took home a meager pay of just $75 a month<\/a>and hadn\u2019t gotten a raise in years. By one estimate, the cost of living<\/a> for a single person in Bangladesh is about $360 a month, not including rent.<\/p>\n

Workers have demanded a modest $205 a month, but pay increases offered by the country\u2019s manufacturers totaled barely half that.<\/p>\n

As protests intensified<\/a>, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina \u2014 once hailed as a liberal leader<\/a> \u2014 unleashed security forces that have intimidated and attacked union organizers. Police recently fatally shot a 23-year-old mother<\/a> and sewing machine operator named Anjuara Khatun after firing at protesters.<\/p>\n

On the surface, U.S. brands who purchase their inventories from Bangladesh\u2019s factories appear to be on the right side of the fight. The American Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA), an industry trade group, wrote a joint letter<\/a> urging Hasina to \u201craise the minimum wage to a level\u2026 sufficient to cover workers\u2019 basic needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The AAFA even asked the government to avoid retaliating against unions and to respect \u201ccollective bargaining rights.\u201d The U.S. State Department issued a statement<\/a> saying, \u201cWe commend the members of the private sector who have endorsed union proposals for a reasonable wage increase.\u201d<\/p>\n

Further, global retailers are offering to eat into their profits by increasing the price they pay factories<\/a> to help them offset increased wages. Currently, the cost of the labor to produce garments is a mere 10-13 percent of a product\u2019s total manufacturing cost.<\/p>\n

But are companies really committed to raising garment workers\u2019 wages?<\/p>\n

A survey<\/a> of about 1,000 factories in Bangladesh, published in early 2023, revealed that companies like Zara and H&M underpaid factories for garment purchases, making it harder for them to pay their workers. And when the COVID-19 pandemic led to global shutdowns, large retailers canceled orders and delayed payments.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly when suppliers are able to plan ahead, with confidence that they will earn as expected,\u201d one industry expert told The Guardian<\/i><\/a>, \u201ccan they deliver good working conditions for their workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been more than 10 years since the deadly collapse of Bangladesh\u2019s Rana Plaza<\/a>, the world\u2019s worst garment industry disaster. The eight-story compound in Dhaka was filled with thousands of workers when it crumbled under the weight of government neglect and worker exploitation in April 2013. More than 1,100 workers, most of them women, were killed.<\/p>\n

In the wake of the disaster, North American brands refused to join other global companies<\/a> in signing on to the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh<\/a>. Citing high costs, they chose instead to form their own alliance for inspecting factories, one that applied lower safety standards.<\/p>\n

It was a stark indicator of where these companies\u2019 priorities lay \u2014 and suggests their latest comments about higher wages are just lip service.<\/p>\n

Fast fashion is expected to more than double its market size<\/a> over six years, growing from $91 billion in 2021 to a projected $185 billion by 2027. Meanwhile, the workers who fuel the profits behind that expansion are facing starvation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This holiday season, perhaps the best gift we can give is a commitment to force the industry to pay up<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The post The High Cost of Low Holiday Prices<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2019Tis the season for holiday sales. But on the other side of the planet, there\u2019s a high cost for those low prices. This is especially true for \u201cfast fashion,\u201d the clothing equivalent of a Big Mac: attractive, affordable, and throwaway. The Bangladeshi women who toil as underpaid garment workers so we can wear disposable outfits More<\/a><\/p>\n

The post The High Cost of Low Holiday Prices<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":340,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,1150],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379828"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/340"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1379828"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1379829,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379828\/revisions\/1379829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1379828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1379828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1379828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}