We Never Forget: April 24, 2013 Rana Plaza Factory Collapse
-Savar Upazila, Dhaka District, Bangladesh -1,134 killed, 2,500 injured -Suspect: Sohel Rana, Charge: Murder -“The search for the dead ended on 13 May 2013 with a death toll of 1,134.”
Photograph by Sharat Chowdhury [edited] Rana Plaza Factory Collapse of April 24, 2013, at Dhaka, Bangladesh -Board of the Missing, taken April 27, 2013
From Warehouse Workers United – Statement from Kalpona Akter on Rana Plaza Factory Collapse of April 24, 2013
Our deepest sympathies go out to the families of workers lost in this tragic event.It must be said, these tragedies can be prevented by multinational corporations like Walmart and the Gap that operate in Bangladesh. Because of these companies’ negligence and willful ignorance, garment workers are in danger every day because of the unsafe working conditions.
As we learn more details, we will better understand the brands that were manufactured in these factories, but we already know that the largest retailers in the world hold tremendous power to transform conditions for garment workers – mostly young women – in Bangladesh.
Today’s news is yet another reminder that Walmart and the Gap must immediately adopt the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement, a transparent and legally binding agreement that includes worker representation, independent building inspections, worker rights training, public disclosure and a long-overdue review of safety standards. The safety agreement is the first step toward ensuring no more lives are lost.
More from Warehouse Workers United:
Kalpona is the Executive Director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity. She is a former garment worker and is currently in the United States calling on retailers like Walmart, the Gap and Disney to lead on improving working conditions and adopting fires safety standards in Bangladesh.Today, international worker rights groups are calling for immediate action from international corporations and brands following the horrific news of a deadly collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Savar, in Dhaka Bangladesh. The collapse of the eight story building that housed five factories and a mall, has reportedly killed at least 80 people and injured over 800[*]. For the last month Kalpona has been touring the United States with Sumi Abedin, a young garment worker who jumped out of a third story window to save her life as the Tazreen factory burned killing on 112.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday March 3, 1913 New York, New York – The Striking Garment Workers and The Protocol
From the International Socialist Review of March 1913:
New York Garment Workers and the Protocol -Phillips Russell ———-
The New Disease: Protocolic
As this is written, the great strike of the garment workers in New York is in its seventh week and, according to present indications, it may last even longer than the historic struggle of the cloakmakers in 1910, which endured for nine weeks.
At present the garment workers’ strike seems to be suffering from a bad attack of the new industrial ailment that might be described as the “protocolic.” Twice the officials of the United Garment Workers’ Union, who pulled the strike, have tried to get an agreement approved which involved the signing of a protocol, but both times got severe jolts from the strikers as a whole who made known their opinions of compromise in no uncertain tones. The attempt to induce the strikers to accept the protocol has so far produced little but dissension and has had much to do with smothering the spirit of the workers which at first was militant and aggressive.
The waist makers have already gone back to work under the terms of a protocol, though a considerable part of them did so reluctantly, and so great opposition was manifested towards it at one meeting in Cooper Union that a serious outbreak was narrowly averted.
Hellraisers Journal – Thursday February 20, 1913 Rochester, New York – Ida Braeman, 17-Year-Old Striker, Shot Down by Boss
From the Chicago Day Book of February 6, 1913:
KILLS GIRL STRIKER WITH SHOT GUN
Rochester, N. Y., Feb. 6.-Ira Braeman, 17 years old, was shot and killed in cold blood by Valentine Sauter here last night.
Ida Braeman was a girl of the garment workers’ strike. Sauter is a clothing manufacturer.
Every labor union in Rochester will unite in the effort to push the charge of murder in the first degree against Sauter.
Sauter was in his shop when a group of strikers gathered outside and called to the strikebreakers within to quit work and join them.
Sauter picked up a shotgun and went to a window. He fired point-blank into the little group of girl strikers.
Ida Braeman was killed instantly; three others were wounded.
Sauter’s shot scattered the strikers, but when they saw the body of Ida Braeman lying in the street they came back, and only the arrival of the police prevented Sauter’s shop being torn down about his head. On the way to the station, the police had to use their clubs to protect the man.
Sauter says he fired because he thought his property was in danger.
Hellraisers Journal – Wednesday February 5, 1913 New York, New York – The Garment Strike by Mary Marcy, Photos by Paul Thompson
From the InternationalSocialistReview of February 1913:
THE NEW YORK GARMENT WORKERS By MARY E. MARCY
Photographs by Paul Thompson, New York.
[Part III of III]
Unlike the Lawrence strike, the strike of the New York garment workers is from the top DOWN; that is the union officials ordered the strike and have held the reins in their hands ever since. Without doubt they are trying to serve the strikers, but it is our opinion that they would build more permanently in permitting the strikers themselves to have the deciding voice in their own affairs; in teaching them self-reliance and class solidarity.
But the workers are finding out many things for themselves. They are thrilling with a new sense of power; they are learning the joy that comes when workers of whatever race or creed fight side by side in a great class struggle. The hope of victory and achievement is in the air and it is doubtful whether they will obey any orders from the union officials if their employers do not grant them appreciable benefits.
The heart of every true Socialist is with the strikers in this fight. We believe that the strike is a valuable form of direct action that teaches working class self-reliance and solidarity better than anything else. It teaches the workers to conduct their own fights. It brings out the class character of all existing social institutions. It teaches above all things, the necessity of revolutionary class unionism.
Hellraisers Journal – Tuesday February 4, 1913 New York, New York – The Garment Strike by Mary Marcy, Photos by Paul Thompson
From the InternationalSocialistReview of February 1913:
THE NEW YORK GARMENT WORKERS By MARY E. MARCY
Photographs by Paul Thompson, New York.
[Part II of III]
The thugs employed by the shop bosses have proved very energetic and reliable. They have worked early and late beating up strikers whenever possible, starting trouble and blaming it on the workers, while the police stood by (or took a hand) to see that nobody attacked or injured them.
During the first week in January the union officials conferred with the employers relative to a settlement of the strike, but the New York Call reports that all negotiations were broken off when the employers insisted upon a return of the strikers to the shops pending an investigation of the conditions in the trade by a special commission to be appointed for that purpose. The union officials declared that under no circumstances would “they order the men to return to work” pending an investigation or arbitration of their demands.
As the pickets began to suffer at the hands of the company guards, it was decided to take a lesson from the strikers at Lawrence, Mass., and chain picketing was employed for the first time in New York City.
Ten thousand pickets were asked to report each day, starting to work on the “Chain Picket Line” at 5 :00 o’clock in the morning, to pass constantly in a steady stream of pedestrians before the strikebound shops.
On the day of the inauguration of the Chain Picket plan, the unions held various meetings which were well attended by the strikers. Hugh Frayneurged a general strike in every branch of the needle and garment industries, promising the support of the A. F. of L. while Abe Cahan closed one meeting begging the strikers to be true to the American Federation of Labor. He urged them to carry an A. F. of L. card in one pocket and a Socialist party card in the other (that is to work for class organization on one side and craft division on the other.)
This is very different from the calls of the Industrialists, all of whom insist upon a CLASS UNION card on the industrial field and a Socialist party card to represent their class interests upon the political field.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday February 3, 1913 New York, New York – The Garment Strike by Mary Marcy, Photos by Paul Thompson
From the International Socialist Review of February 1913:
[Part I of III]
A WALKOUT which may yet involve every garment worker in the nation, was started in New York City, December 30th, when scores of thousands of men and women employed in the garment industries responded to the call issued by the United Garment Workers of America and deserted the shops and benches where they had toiled for years.
The response to the strike call was so great that the union officials declared the union was a great deal stronger than they had believed. One thousand five hundred volunteer red scouts, who were picked to carry the official strike declaration, were on the job at 4:00 o’clock in the morning ready to start out with bundles of strike orders to be distributed in all sections of the Lower East Side. Before night over 100,000 men, women and children had taken their working paraphernalia home to begin the good fight.
The garment workers are striking for:
The abolition of the subcontracting system. The abolition of foot power. That no work be given out to be done in tenement houses. Overtime to be paid for at the rate of time and one half, double time for holidays. A forty-eight hour work week. A general wage increase of 20 per cent for all the workers in the garment industry.
The following scale of wages: Operators-First class, sewing around coats, sewing in sleeves, and pocket makers, $25 per week; second class, lining makers, closers and coat stitchers, $22; third class, sleeve makers and all other machine workers, $16. Tailors-First class, shapers, underbasters and fitters, $24; second class, edge basters, canvas basters, collar makers, lining basters and bushelers, $21; third class, armhole basters, sleeve makers, and all other tailoring, $17. Pressers-Bushel pressers, $24; regular pressers, second class, $24; underpressers and edge pressers, $18. Women and Child Workers-Button sewers and bushel hands, $12; hand buttonhole makers, first class, 3½ cents; second class, sack coats, 2½ cents; feller hands, not less than $10 a week.
Hellraisers Journal – Monday January 27, 1913 New York, New York – Theresa Malkiel on Suffering of Garment Workers
From The Coming Nation of January 25, 1913:
Striking for the Right to Live
-by Theresa Malkiel
[Part II of III]
The clothing workers have suffered and starved, and, it must be admitted, tried to improve their condition by frequent strikes and attempts at organization. But their organizations, even as their strikes bore local character. One part of the trade, or one branch, or subdivision would go out on the warpath, but its struggle was doomed from the start, for the rest of the industry continued its work as if nothing had happened.
The German hated the Jew, the Jew the Italian, who is trying to wrench the trade from him, the Italian despised the Russian, the Russian the American, the cutter looked down upon the operator, the operator exploited the finisher, the finisher the helper, and while this was going on the employers exploited them all to their heart’s content.
The United Garment Workers of America, though considered the mother body of the clothing trade occupied themselves chiefly with one branch the overall-making, which is mostly in the hands of American women, and paid but little attention to the woes and sorrows of the tailors, perhaps, because the latter was considered beyond redemption.
Thus have men, women and children slaved for over seventy-five years. Thus have thousands upon thousands gone to their early graves, victims of consumption, heart disease, malnutrition, insanity. The man in charge of the claim department of the Workingman’s Circle, most of whose members are garment workers, told the writer that nine-tenths of their members died before they reached the age of forty.
And with the tailors the general public suffered. Unsanitary work-rooms, sweat-shop labor means infection of the garments, and eventually of the public who wear them. Our coats and suits were and still are made in places where smallpox, scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles, consumption and numerous other contagious diseases make great inroads. Our garments are made by workers themselves afflicted with disease, as a matter of fact, the workers in the sweat-shops and tenements not only work on the garments we wear, but often use them to sleep on or to cover themselves with.
Thus have ninety-two million people all over the country been subject to disease and contagion carried to them in their garments from Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Rochester and New York. For these cities produce 70 per cent of the entire output of man’s and children’s clothing, while New York alone produces one-third of the entire output.
New York was always the largest center in the clothing industry. The city has the natural advantages for production of all grades of clothing. Here, too, a large body of tailors land from Europe, and for the most part remain. The tailors form the nucleus for the better grades of work, while the hundreds of thousands of immigrants landing here yearly enable the employers to obtain cheap labor for the lower grade of garments.
The 125,000 striking garment workers think and say that their strike should be the concern of the entire nation. That their demand for the abolition of the sweat-shop and the subcontracting system should meet the endorsement of every thinking man and woman.
As a matter of fact, even the capitalist press, always ready to slur labor and denounce strikes has exhibited a more human attitude in this strike. It has gone even so far as to express its approval of the abolition of the sweatshop, this perhaps, not because it loves the garment workers so much, but that it wants to protect the general public more.
Then again the sudden display of solidarity has almost taken our newspaper men off their feet. And how wonderful this display is at present can be fully appreciated by an eye witness only. From the highest to the lowest, the few Americans as well as the great body of foreigners, the bulk of Jewish men even as the Italian women stand out for the recognition of their union, for the joint settlement with all branches
“When did the tailor learn this class solidarity? How did he come by it?” ask our upholders of the present regime. They know not, or don’t care to know that the world moved a bit of late, that the progress of evolution, the age of industrialism has advanced the cause of the working class. That the workers are not only firmly-planted on the economic field, but that they have a great political party, the Socialist party, that they have a great press in almost all languages represented in the tailoring industry, the Socialist press.
Hellraisers Journal – Sunday January 26, 1913 New York, New York – Theresa Malkiel Observes Ten Thousand Pickets
From The Coming Nation of January 25, 1913:
Striking for the Right to Live
-by Theresa Malkiel
[Part II of III]
Ten Thousand Pickets
A tumult, a commotion, a shout and I found myself eagerly peering out of the window; many heads pressed close about and in back of me. They were coming from the field work, the pickets I mean. Not two, not ten, not a hundred, but 10,000 strong, an army of labor, a city in itself.
My God! how powerful they looked. Every stone in the street pavements, every brick of the dark grim tenements seemed to have spoken to me of it. I was moved to tears of joy. I felt like a long-lost traveler who had at last found the right road. Now I knew it. There is where the true power, the road to freedom, was to be found in the combination and solidarity of labor.
These ten thousand tailor pickets were a power that even New York could not combat. It would take the entire police force to fight them man to man, or rather man to woman, for the women are really the greater fighters, the most determined pickets of the two.
Out of the picket line came an Italian woman, a mother of six children. She was beaten up by the police while watching her shop with a few others. The brutal thugs in police uniform knocked her about, bruised her face, disheveled her hair, tore her clothes off her back and Lord knows what else they might have done to her had she not been rescued by the army of 10,000.
Thus is the working class mother treated by our capitalist government, for no other crime than the earnest desire to earn an honest living for her children.
She took it calmly, stoically, as they all take it, the true Roman matrons that they are. “It’s all for my childs,” she said. “I fight them again. I no care.”
And still the picket line marched onward like a threatening cloud from above. They feared nothing, not even the elements. Occasionally one would fall out of their midst for the same reasons as the Italian woman came out of the picket line, but the men, like the women, took the medicine dealt out to them by the police and thugs like good fellows.
Hellraisers Journal – Saturday January 25, 1913 New York, New York – Theresa Malkiel on the Scene with Striking Garment Workers
From The Coming Nation of January 25, 1913:
Striking for the Right to Live
-by Theresa Malkiel
[Part I of III]
GRANDMOTHER! what are you doing here?” I asked of an old, old Italian woman who came up panting to the fourth floor of Clinton Hall. She turned around, looked me over with her black, penetrating eyes, which in spite of her age had not lost their luster and said:
“Me striker. Who you are?” I showed her my speaker’s card issued by the joint committee of the Socialist party and the United Hebrew Trades and she nodded her head in approval. I told her I was anxious to hear the story of the strike from the lips of the workers themselves.
“Me no speak much English,” she replied, “but me tella you just what me feel.”
She pulled up her gray, worn shawl which had slid down from her bent shoulders, smoothed her snow-white hair and slowly in broken English told me her tale of woe and suffering.
As she talked on I observed her closely and wondered what had kept up the fire and activity in that aged body, perhaps her very sorrow and unbelievable struggle for existence, for the revelations made by these aged lips sent a chill through me, filled my heart with horror. I knew that her case was not singular, that her condition was characteristic of the condition of all of her sisters in the trade and they constitute 60 per cent of the entire number of 15,000 women workers in men’s and children’s clothing industry.
She told me of twenty long years spent in the clothing workshops where the air is constantly surcharged with the foulest odors and laden with disease germs, she complained of the lack of sunlight of which she had so much in her own land. Here she had to spend her days working by artificial light. She complained of the long hours when work was plentiful, of the dread of slack time, of the small wages at best.
A bread winner for her own children in her younger days, when she first came to this country, she was now supporting two grand-children whose mother fell a victim to the ravages of consumption. Consumption invaded the old Italian woman’s family, as it had invaded the families of most of the clothing workers, carrying them off in the prime of life. The old woman was exceptionally strong, and she and the two small children she was supporting were the only survivors of the whole family.
These children, who are the apple of her eye, she keeps in a two-room flat of a rear eight-story tenement house located on East Houston street, the district where most of the clothing workers lived in order to be near their workshops, and where the population is recorded to be 1,108 to every acre. She pays $8 a month for rent and keeps two boarders to help pay it.
Strike for Love of Grandchildren
This woman who lacks only five years to the allotted three score and ten must finish 20 pair of pants, that is, sew on the lining, serge the seams, finish up the legs, sew on buttons and tack the buttonholes in order to make a dollar a day; $6 a week is the highest she ever makes in season. The season in the clothing industry lasts from March to June and from September to December. The old woman is no exception, to the rule, $6 per week, in fact, is above the average, many make less and very few more. They have no regular hours, but work as long as there is work, sometimes twelve, and fourteen hours a day.
It was not herself that the old Italian woman considered so much, as her poor orphan grand-children who had to take up the trade where she would leave it off.
“Why me strike you ask?” all the venom of the years of sorrow and wretchedness, all the bitter memory of her sacrificed children, cried out in her voice of defiance.
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