VOA标准英语2013--Bangladesh Disaster Calls Attention to Worldwide Garment Industry

 

Bangladesh Disaster Calls Attention to Worldwide Garment Industry

The building collapse¹ comes just five months after a massive fire killed more than 100 people at another clothing factory in Bangladesh.  John Sifton, Asia Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch, says factory owners and the government must ensure buildings are safe.  He believes conditions would also improve if garment workers were unionized and could sue for injury.  

“Bangladesh has very problematic labor² conditions, and part of the reason the workers can be driven so hard to produce good quality product on time quickly is because they don’t have any rights,” Sifton said.

Pietra Rivoli, a business professor at Georgetown University in Washington, says legislation is needed to change the conditions in Bangladesh.  So is pressure by U.S. retail³ companies.

“When it becomes clear that a factory will not get orders unless it’s adhering to certain minimum standards, the factory will start to take notice,” Rivoli said.

After China, Bangladesh is the world's second largest apparel exporter.  Sifton says Bangladesh pays 3.5 million garment workers some of the world’s lowest wages.

“They come from a low socio-economic level, and they’re not going to argue too much when you offer them a wage that would never be accepted anyplace else in the world,” Sifton said.

Those low wages and the ability to produce high-quality apparel are reasons garment factories move from one country to another.

“China was the dominant⁴ force, five or 10 years ago, but wages in China have tripled, and so garment producers find it much more expensive to produce in China.  And so, if all of a sudden it becomes too expensive to pay your workers, then that will be the reason that the production will tend to start to move to lower-cost places.  Vietnam and Bangladesh are examples, Pakistan, India,” Rivoli said.

Since labor is the single biggest cost, U.S. companies have found it cheaper to use overseas contractors⁵ to make garments. That’s why, Rivoli says, American apparel companies don’t own factories.

“Instead, they place orders through a very complex international supply chain.  Even though we tend to look at the large price difference between the price tag in the store and the pay that the workers get, in fact, there are no parties throughout this whole process that are making a whole lot of money,” Rivoli said.

Rivoli points out that garment factories often allow industrialization to take root and flourish.  She says it happened in Britain in the 1700s, in the U.S. in the 1800s and in China 10 or so years ago.

1 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

2 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

3 retail   

v./n.零售；adv.以零售价格

参考例句：

• In this shop they retail tobacco and sweets.这家铺子零售香烟和糖果。
• These shoes retail at 10 yuan a pair.这些鞋子零卖10元一双。

4 dominant   

adj.支配的，统治的；占优势的；显性的；n.主因，要素，主要的人(或物)；显性基因

参考例句：

• The British were formerly dominant in India.英国人从前统治印度。
• She was a dominant figure in the French film industry.她在法国电影界是个举足轻重的人物。

5 contractors   

n.（建筑、监造中的）承包人( contractor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• We got estimates from three different contractors before accepting the lowest. 我们得到3个承包商的报价后，接受了最低的报价。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Contractors winning construction jobs had to kick back 2 per cent of the contract price to the mafia. 赢得建筑工作的承包商得抽出合同价格的百分之二的回扣给黑手党。 来自《简明英汉词典》