Again; Joe Fresh Must Die, and Here's Why

Joe Fresh Must Die!

by C. L. Cook - #JoeFreshMustDie!

[September 22, 2013 - Months past the point and little has been done to address the lethal shortcomings of the garment industry. Yes, the hot spot is once again in Bangladesh, but this is not their problem alone, not by a long shot. Here's a bulletin about the unions doing what unions once did here in North America, getting into the streets and standing their ground against the bosses and the corrupt cops they run. I say once again, "Joe Fresh must die!". The Independent reports: http://t.co/h9D8foLqZZ - ape]

Why Joe must die. The odious entity is one of a handful of corpse creating foreign corporations at the centre of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh.

On April 24th, 2013 the shoddily constructed, (and illegally altered) Rana Plaza, a sprawling industrial and retail complex employing thousands was ordered closed due to a five-story crack on the side of the building observed by authorities the day before. Most of the companies within Rana closed and sent staff home, but a few refused to obey the order, threatening their workers instead with loss of pay already hard-earned, and allegedly violence too, if they didn't get back to the machines. That action condemned hundreds to a terrible death, crushed beneath the rubble, and hundreds more to an anonymous and uncertain fate - missing and believed killed at work.

Joe Fresh is the garment spin-off of Canadian food retailing giant, Loblaw Cos. Ltd. Loblaw is the biggest food seller in the country, and majority owned by the George Weston Inc. family of companies. In what is reported as a "rare" move in reaction to the disaster in Bangladesh, the company has offered unspecified compensation to the survivors of those killed, but how that process would go forward is still tentative. What is certain though; it is not enough to offer a pittance to a few bereaved and believe this grotesque business model can continue as usual.

Five months to the day of the Rana collapse, another in a regularly occurring string of disasters afflicting the barely better than slave workforce of Bangladesh's garment industry killed 125 at the Tazreen Garment factory in a fire reminiscent of the Triangle Shirt Waist Company of New York a century ago. In 1911, workers locked in the 8th, 9th, and 10th floor sweat shop leapt to their deaths rather than burn, traumatizing shocked passers-by, and prompting reforms that would change the American garment industry ever afterward. Promises of change were made in Bangladesh too, but clearly no worker death toll will be a number large enough to move the captains of international trade and finance to sacrifice their bottom line for the well-being of those at the bottom of the social order toiling to maintain investor profit margins.

In his article, 'Bangladeshi Workers Need More Than Boycotts' Indian author and journalist, Vijay Prashad sets the scene in the suburb factories of the capital, where thousands of garment workers downed tools to rush to the rescue of their fellows trapped in the Rana Plaza collapse. There they dug with their hands, tunneling into the rubble. at time of writing, a week after the fact, more than 400 of those pulled out are dead, and another 900 are believed lost and unrecoverable. Sohel Rana, the owner of the plaza and author of this disaster is under arrest, as are an unspecified number of "executives" of the five companies that continued work in spite of the clear and present danger. Prashad details Bangladesh's recent history; the evisceration of the union movement started at the country's 1971 independence, and that movement's exclusion from the Export Processing Zones, Bangladesh's on-ramp to the global garment supply super highway.

Vijay Prashad is quick to dispel the notion Bangladesh's desperate workers are victims, passively allowing the injustice and corruption perpetrated against them by the thugs of international capital and the toughs who serve out the punishing inducements necessary to keep the whole nasty enterprise going. Over the last two years, walk-outs, company violence, and police intimidation of workers has escalated. The Tazreen fire is now believed to have been arson, and possibly connected to a battle royale between workers and organized criminal gangs in the employ of factory owners. Prashad says boycotts are not enough, writing;

"Pressure on north Atlantic governments that mollycoddle multinational firms would create a breathing space for workers who otherwise suffer the full wrath of firms that couch their repression in the syrupy language of hard work and growth rates."

But even so, boycotts and pressure on governments like Canada's is still not enough. What is needed here is an example; a sacrificial goat whose complete destruction, beyond its despicable everyday practices, can be localized to a single place and event, illustrating to its partners and competitors the mortal risks corporate bodies take when defying the moral sensibilities of a world weary of the casual cruelty demanded and committed in the name of profit.

Joe Fresh is not alone, God knows, in this; but it is the one caught last jumping the fence. It, like the thug Sohel Rana, must be dragged before the public in a bullet-proof vest and be made to bear the survivors' screams for vengeance. "Hang him! Hang him!" the righteous indignant rang out for Rana, and with him Joe Fresh must too be called for to swing.

What good will it serve to hang Rana and a half dozen of his accomplices if the next day Bangladesh's Satanic Mills stoke their furnaces and begin again, unmoved and unchanged by the carnage seen last week? None. How many weeks will follow before another Rana Plaza burns or collapses, and how many will die in the streets fighting the corrupt cops and corporate killers they serve? More.

It is time we "consumers" of the fruits of slavery refuse to participate any longer. It is time we kill the "immortal" corporations; starting with Joe Fresh.

How You Can Help Kill Joe Fresh

1.  Don't buy it.

2.  Tell your parents not to buy it.

3.  Tell your friends it ain't cool.

4.  Hold public burials for any garments you already possess.

5.  Send messages of solidarity to workers' organizations in Bangladesh.

6.  Call your local unions and ask what they are doing.

7.  Petition your MP and government.

8.  Contact Loblaw and tell them; "Joe Fresh must die!"

9.  Spread the word.

10. Persist, persist, persist. 

Together we can kill Joe Fresh, and make of its shattered corpse the warning to any and all monied miscreants: "We will not abide!"

More Background on the Rana Plaza Collapse
by C. L. Cook

Mass worker mobilization, police riots, and a raging fire in the rubble of a collapsed factory marked Workers' Memorial Day in Bangladesh April 28th. Bloomberg BusinessWeek reported the arrest of executives from three garment makers, along with the owner of the former Rana Plaza in Savar, Bangladesh following public outcry and demonstration.

As of writing, more than three hundred and sixty are confirmed dead, with many more missing. Rescue operations were halted due to the fire within the rubble of the large manufacturing complex that literally fell apart last Wednesday, April 24th and authorities now say they are switching from manual searches to machine assisted recovery operations.

The usual culprits are cited as causing the disaster: shoddy building materials, unskilled labour, sub-standard building codes, and rampant corruption at all levels of the Savar Municipal Corp., the licensor. But what's really behind the death and carnage in Savar, and so many other places, and who bears ultimate responsibility?

The Canadian state broadcaster, CBC reported Canadian retailer, Loblaws Ltd. was one of several foreign corporations contracting branded products made in Rana Plaza at the time of the calamity. Joe Fresh is one of Loblaws' labels, and it issued a statement downplaying the company's involvement, saying it had just a "small number" of its products made there.

Joe Fresh VP of public relations, Julija Hunter is quoted by the CBC saying the company's audit policy is in step with globally accepted norms and has;

"robust vendor standards to ensure that products are manufactured in a socially responsible way, ensuring a safe and sustainable work environment." 

Hunter assured, Joe Fresh was seeking improvements, and was reaching out to other industry players to review those "robust standards."

Speaking for the Canadian government, Foreign Affairs minister, John Baird released a statement that in part read;

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the injured and those who lost family members or friends in this tragedy." Adding; "We stress the importance for all governments to take concrete measures to provide workers with safe and healthy working conditions.”

While Mr. Baird may think it the responsibility of government to "provide workers with safe and healthy working conditions," (something his own government is loath to do in Canada) it is not the sole fault of the corrupted Savar Municipal Corp., who issued building permits based on its own low standards and tacit assurances to construction operators those meager standards would not be enforced. The operators in Rana disregarded government inspectors orders the facility be evacuated when substantial cracks in the building were discovered. Those operators, some of whom are now under arrest, felt confident they could fix whatever trouble the government made with pay-offs. It's a system Baird should be well acquainted with given the travails of SNC-Lavalin, another Canadian corporation doing business in Bangladesh, recently embroiled in a bribery scandal that made all the papers at home.

What Baird would not suggest is the efficacy of a unionization movement to ensure safe and healthy conditions; beginning with fair wages. The extreme and systemic poverty of the workers in the Rana factory is evidenced by their abject obeisance and uniform compliance with orders they return to work in a condemned building, despite other offices in the same complex being evacuated, simply because their bosses threatened to withhold wages earned if they did not. Minister Baird also fails to consider the responsibility of the employers to provide a safe and healthy work environment - as is the case in most workplaces in Canada. This selective censure on John Baird's part is suggestive of a determined ignorance on the government of Canada's part which conveniently serves the interests of its native corporate operators abroad much as the blind-eyed behaviour of the official upholders of Bangladesh's slim legislated demands of employers does over there.

So, who then is to blame, and what is to be done?

Notes:

In the rubble of Rana Plaza. Photo by Taslima Akhter

“Labor-rights groups around the world have been asking, indeed imploring, major retailers to address the grievous safety hazards in their Bangladesh factories and the response is always the same: vague promises and public relations dodges, while the pile of corpses grows ever higher,” Scott Nova, executive director of the Washington-based Worker Rights Consortium, said in a statement.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-04-28/bangladesh-arrests-rana-plaza-owner-as-fire-breaks-out-in-rubble
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/04/25/bangladesh-building-collapse-garment-factories-evacuation-order.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/06/21/snc-lavalin-bribes_n_1617129.html
http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/2013/05/thugs-of-bangladesh-arrest-in-dhaka.html
http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/bangladeshs-wage-slaves-need-more-than.html