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February 7, 2014

Activists Spotlight Plight of Bangladeshi Garment Workers During NY Fashion Week 
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In New York City, activists gathered to protest New York's Fashion Week
on Thursday, demanding better wages and conditions for garment workers
in Bangladesh. The demonstrators called for U.S. brands whose clothing
was made in the Rana Plaza factory complex to compensate relatives of
the more than 1,100 workers who died when the building collapsed last
April. Michelle Flores of 99 Pickets spoke at the event.

Michelle Flores: "Fashion Week here in New York is a spectacle of
luxury, and I think that there is a need to draw attention to where
these clothes will get made. And it's really relevant, I mean, across
the supply chain, whether you are an independent designer who can't
afford to compete with the major companies and the major brands, who
will then send those designs abroad to be produced in factories where
workers don't have a voice. So I think New York Fashion Week is really
important for that reason. Some of the brands who will be here this week
are brands whose clothing was made in those factories where these
tragedies happened in Bangladesh."

The Illuminator art collective later projected images of the Rana Plaza
collapse victims onto buildings in New York City. The protests came the
same day as a new report detailing how garment factory owners in
Bangladesh threaten and intimidate workers who try to form unions.
Workers told Human Rights Watch they faced sexist insults, death
threats, physical attacks and intimidation that forced them to resign
after they tried to organize.

 

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