Major clothing retailers in the Western world are being urged to exercise more oversight of working conditions in the Asian factories where their garments are manufactured.
Catholic social teaching is being quoted as the death toll in the Bangladesh tragedy of a collapsed garment factory rises above 1100. Bangladesh is the second or third largest exporter of garments in the world, behind only China and possibly Vietnam.
In the United States, government officials, investors and religious groups are warning major retailers like Walmart, Benetton and Gap that they could face a financial backlash from consumers, damage to their share value or sustained public protests if they do not adopt stricter standards.
The New York Times reports growing impatience with American and European retailers and apparel brands because only two companies — PVH, the parent company of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, and Tchibo, a German retailer — have signed a binding agreement on safety standards for factories.
Edward J. O’Boyle, senior research associate with Mayo Research Institute in the US, cited Pope John Paul II’s 1981 encyclical Laborem Exercens, which said labour’s effect on the worker is more important than both its effect on the product and on profits.
“We cannot purchase imported goods at the price of the lives of people in other countries simply because they live in other countries where working conditions are deplorable; we have an obligation to intervene,” O’Brien said.
Christopher Westley, an economics professor at Jacksonville State University, said economic and social systems “have to be based upon the primacy of the human person”, as Catholic social teaching says.
Father Seamus P. Finn, representing shareholders from the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, has been circulating a letter among religious organisations to express displeasure with the American retailers.
He says the retailers have not done nearly enough to improve workplace safety for the more than three million garment workers in Bangladesh.
“What happened in Bangladesh is a game-changer because of the gravity of the situation and the tremendous loss of life,” Father Finn said. “People are really coming to life about this and saying, ‘We need to do something’. ”
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Image: New York Times