In this tragic incident the authors see an illustration of why off-shoring of American production and "free trade" policies have been so beneficial for our One Percent ruling class who have shipped American jobs overseas to countries where barbaric sweatshop working conditions still exist.
“The Triangle Shirtwaist fire [in New York City in 1911] galvanized a reform movement in the U.S. that transformed an industry of dangerous sweatshops into one defined by safe workplaces and decent wages. Now, global outsourcing has allowed retailers like Gap and Walmart to turn back the clock to 1911, recreating in places like Bangladesh the brutal conditions and rock-bottom production costs that prevailed in the U.S. at the time of the Triangle fire.A piece from the World Socialist Web Site argues correctly that such working conditions in Bangladesh and other poor countries are the new normal for globalized capitalism. Hence, protests against individual companies will not in the long run change anything.
Tragedies like the Tazreen Fashions fire will not be halted by appeals to governments and the transnational corporations. The only way to end such crimes is through the unified struggle of workers around the world to put an end to the barbaric profit system and reorganise society on the basis of a planned world socialist economy.
