The Bad Old Days...

... are right now in Bangladesh. So far 112 are dead in a garment factory fire. Comparable to the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire which took 146 lives. Sometimes regulation is necessary and proper.

It depends on the reaction of the Banladeshians?, Bangladeshers?, Bangladeshis?, whether they see this as a tragedy, or 112 job openings.
Certainly the factory owners aren't going to make any improvements that would cut into profits unless they are forced to.

witness the *absence* of the countervailing power of labor.

Capital and management are necessary ingredients, but not sufficient.

Bangladeshis.

The workers will do whatever they can to get by and feed their families.
They live in a country where dying in a ditch is a reality, not a political warning against welfare. Or by the side of the road, or in slums where a doctor never comes.

Capitalism doesn't work when the purchasers come from a country where safe drinking water is a given, but they employ workers in a country where 100,000 children die a year from diarrhea. Isn't the American ideal to work yourself out of poverty? All fine and good. But try starting in a country where the average family lives on $1 a day and see if exploitation still feels like reaching for the brass ring.

And no, this is not anti-American. It's anti all Western companies that use child labour, illegal working environments and poor conditions to turn over huge profits. Make them sit up and take notice. If they agree across the board then these execrables won't exist.

The Chinese cannot flood the market with cheap imports unless they are bought. You buy cheap you sell cheap - opposite of designer branding, surely.

This is heartbreaking. I agree, Sundae - capitalism doesn't work on a global basis, not when workers are being employed in factories without emergency exits so that clothing can be marked down to $5/item at 70% off on Black Friday. You wouldn't be able to find an American who would say the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire was just fine because conditions kept retail prices low (assuming you could find an American who knew about the TSF, other than a few Dwellars), but as a population, along with Canadians and those in many other 'developed' countries, we're all amazingly obtuse about what it takes to provide those Black Friday specials.

Buy local. Buy less. Reduce, reuse, recycle. Read the Henry Huggins and Ramona books and realize that even Americans (and Canadians) didn't need new everything, every day, not so long ago. We all need to consider the welfare of the entire globe if we're going to survive in this 'global economy'.

How does one even communicate condolences to the families of the dead in Bangladesh? :(

Another fire in Dhaka. No deaths reported, though there were injuries.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/26/world/asia/bangladesh-fire-mourning/

Again, not worth the time to find a more appropriate thread...

This event was very traumatic for us in 1971 when we were living in Buffalo.
We were already working with librarians and clergy to improve
the facilities at Attica and one other prison in New York.
It demanded continuous TV attention almost akin to the past few days of the Boston bombings...


NY Times
By THOMAS KAPLAN
April 19, 2013

Decades Later, State Seeks Release of Report on Attica Uprising

More than 40 years after an uprising at Attica left 43 people dead,
Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman is planning to ask a judge to make public
a trove of investigatory findings that have been hidden from public view for decades.
<snip>
The Meyer report is a review of the events that began Sept. 9, 1971,
when inmates at the Attica Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in western New York,
took dozens of correction officers and civilian employees hostage.
Four days later, under a cloud of tear gas, the State Police and
correction officers waged an assault to recapture the prison.

A vast majority of the casualties at Attica came from gunfire in the raid
[COLOR="DarkRed"]— 29 inmates and 10 prison employees were killed and scores were wounded in the assault — [/COLOR]
and Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller’s decision to approve the storming of the prison has been debated ever since.

The situation was bad and it was an uprising of prisoners,
but it was also later called by many a "police riot"
[COLOR="DarkRed"]Inmates were later found to have killed one guard and three fellow inmates during the uprising.[/COLOR]
.

I remember reading a NYT magazine article about that at the time. I was 11. I wish that hadn't been left around where I could get a hold of it.

The descriptions of the murder and torture by the inmates on the guards and other inmates was lurid and sensational. It put a lot of fear in my heart at that age and unpleasant images in my mind that persisted for decades.

Probably will skip reading that report if it ever becomes public.

Ft3... maybe the Wiki material on the Attica Riot will help alleviate those images.

It turned out that the opposite was closer to the truth.

It was believed that a group of Muslims were responsible for the uprising and the harm of the hostages,
when in fact the group of Muslims was protecting the hostages from other inmates.
The leader of the Muslims even told the other inmates that if any of the inmates tried to hurt the hostages,
that they would "kill [the inmates involved] or die protecting the hostages."

The court in Al Jundi v. Mancusi, 113 F.Supp.2d 441 wrote:
[QUOTE]A number of former Muslim inmates testified that they had been singled out
for "special" brutal treatment by troopers and prison officers because they had
played an active role in protecting the hostages during the four days before the retaking.
Because a number of militant inmates were prepared to do harm to the hostages,
Frank "Big Black" Smith, in conjunction with the Muslim leadership, implemented a plan
to secure the safety of the hostages during negotiations

<snip>

Media reports claimed that inmate hostage-takers slit the throats of many of their hostages,
reports that contradicted official medical evidence.

Newspaper headlines made statements such as "I Saw Slit Throats",
implying that prisoners had cut the hostages' throats when the armed raid occurred.
These fabricated reports set the stage for reprisals by troopers and prison officers.
Inmates were made to strip and crawl through the mud and then some
were made to run naked between lines of enraged officers, who beat the inmates.
Several days after the riot's end, prison doctors reported evidence of more beatings.[6][11][12]

[COLOR="DarkRed"]The Special Commission found that state officials failed to quickly refute those rumors and false reports.[/COLOR][6][/QUOTE]

footfootfoot;861749 wrote:

It put a lot of fear in my heart at that age and unpleasant images in my mind that persisted for decades.

Yeah, the Rockefellers will do that to you... it's a family tradition.

The bad old days are here again.

SAVAR, Bangladesh (AP) &#8212; An eight-story building housing several garment factories collapsed near Bangladesh's capital on Wednesday, killing at least 87 people and trapping many more under a jumbled mess of concrete. Rescuers tried to cut through the debris with earthmovers, drilling machines and their bare hands.

Less than five months after a factory fire killed 112 people, the disaster again underscored the unsafe conditions in Bangladesh's massive garment industry. Workers said they hesitated to go to work Wednesday because the building had developed such severe cracks the previous day that it had been reported on local news channels.

Workers said they hesitated to go to work Wednesday because the building had developed such severe cracks the previous day that it had been reported on local news channels.

I know that economics can make a person desperate, but what the fuck? If the workers knew there were severe cracks, why did they enter the building? Aren't there other shitty garment jobs they can get in buildings without cracks?

In Bangladesh? No.

glatt;862347 wrote:

If the workers knew there were severe cracks, why did they enter the building?

Philadelphia pier 34 on the Delaware River was slowly collapsing into the river in May 2000. A large and obvious crack was covered by plywood so that patrons would not trip. Tens of people saw those cracks and still went out on that pier. Then when it finally collapsed, three women were trapped and killed. Others had to be rescued from the river.

Why did so many see wide cracks and ignore them? Similar question. Nobody had to go out on that pier. Some who ignored the cracks then died.

I recently read about a poorly developed country where ineffective laws and poor enforcement allowed a company to store a huge amount of fertiliser just on the edge of a town, and it blew up. Last I heard there had been 14 killed but 60 "missing".

We should stop trading with countries that let businesses get away with these kinds of things.

glatt;862347 wrote:

I know that economics can make a person desperate, but what the fuck? If the workers knew there were severe cracks, why did they enter the building? Aren't there other shitty garment jobs they can get in buildings without cracks?

You live in a slum.
Your living quarters are made of what you can beg, borrow or steal.
You have no power, no sanitation.
What you bring home is barely enough to feed your family.
You probably already walk long distances to work, because well financed places don't want to be cheek by jowl with the filth of their workers.

This is why people in the Western world call "exploitation", because there is no choice. Because people want to work to save their family from starving. Because people want to work.

And even then, slums are regularly bulldozed. People are hounded out, made to leave behind all they own (cooking pots and charcoal and bedding). The police know they will come back, but they also know they stand the chance of losing their precarious employment. If a houseboy doesn't turn up one day, if a busboy "loses" his uniform, there are plenty others to take his place.

Yes, Zen, bad things happen everywhere (and I know you weren't dismissing the issues in the thread.)
But badder things happen when money is more important than people. And isn't it always? And hasn't it always been?

Only special people can make money, but any old hoi polloi can make people. :haha:

the disaster again underscored the unsafe conditions in Bangladesh's massive garment industry

Presumably only one building had huge cracks that were so big the news reporters came out to report on them. If the industry is a massive one, there have to be lots of shitty jobs at other factories that, while they may be horrible places to work, don't have massive cracks.

I did see a report that said many people were forced to stay in the building, but I don't know what "forced" means. Were they held at gun point? Were they told that they would lose their jobs? Big difference between those two.

Doesn't matter if there's a million jobs, if there's two million workers.
In situations like that, blackballing becomes common. Not show up for work, you lose your job, and "you'll never work in this town again".

Yeah, I guess the unemployment rate is a better indicator than the size of an industry. And the idea of blacklisting someone seems so foreign to me since around here a company could be sued into oblivion if it could be proved that they blacklisted someone. That's why many companies won't even give references.

glatt;862500 wrote:

I did see a report that said many people were forced to stay in the building, but I don't know what "forced" means. Were they held at gun point? Were they told that they would lose their jobs? Big difference between those two.

What Bruce said and what you said.
And the fact that in truth losing your job and risking your life... no question what will win.

Because your life is only you, and your family might get sympathy, payout and help if you die.
With you alive and unemployed you'll all just starve together.