Wednesday 24th April 2013, around nine in the morning an eight-story building in Savar, Bangladesh collapsed killing 1,134 workers and injuring over 2,500 others. Rana Plaza was a building that contained five factories, the third to eighth floors were all factories where dozens of US and European brands and retailers such as H&M, Walmart, and Primark sourced their products from at the time. Rana Plaza is known to be the worst garment factory disaster in the history of the garment industry. This report will explore and discuss who was responsible for the collapse of Rana Plaza, what actions could be taken to prevent a disaster like this happening again and it will include a typology of strategies to prevent worker abuse by contractors in complex supply chains.
Q1
Stakeholders responsibilities in the case of Rana Plaza
Stakeholders who are believed to be responsible in the case of Rana Plaza are, Sohel Rana who was the owner of the building, the Bangladesh Government – especially the mayor of Savar, the architect and builders, and the factory owners.
After Rana Plaza, Sohel Rana, the owner of the building, was found guilty of illegal earnings and later faced charges for involvement of the murder of the workers in the factory.
As the owner, Rana should have made sure that the building itself was safe by having check-ups on the building often but mostly he should have made sure that the workers in his factory felt they were in a safe working environment; the day before the collapse, the workers had reported about large cracks in the walls that opened up the building, when he was told by an expert to close the factory immediately Rana chose to ignore what had been said and insisted the building was safe. The next day Rana threatened those who wouldn’t come in to work on the 24th of April that they would lose a whole month’s wages, therefore the workers had to choose between risking their life or losing their well-earned wages – the workers would earn between $38 to $102 a month which was just enough to survive and as Rana was unjust, as well as being unethical, he knew that the workers would come in the next day because without their wages they couldn’t possibly survive. The death and fatal injuries of these workers could have been easily avoided if Rana had listened to what he had been instructed to do instead of being greedy for his money. Rana’s goal was to make maximum profit, if he had the building fixed instead of forcing workers in he could of in the long term made more profit as the factories could possibly still be open and would still be producing; however, Rana didn’t think what was best for the company or workers he just thought about himself and his profit; and by doing so killed 1,134 workers and injured over 2,500 – including injuries to the head, loss of limbs and even paralysing some. Rana does not show any attributes as a utilitarian, “An action is morally right if it results in the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people affected by the situation.” Stanford (2016 [online]) he put people’s lives in danger so that he could carry on making profit.
The second stakeholder who had responsibility for Rana Plaza was the Bangladeshi government. As the Mayor of Savar and Rana, who himself too was a political leader, were “political allies” (Lawrence and Weber, 2017) Rana was given a permit to build the Plaza without going through the full procedure, however, the permit given for the Plaza was for five stories however Rana illegally added three more floors between 2008 and 2012 and was in the process of building another at the time of the collapse (Lawrence and Weber, 2017). The Mayor of Savar had no involvement in what happened during the build and none before or during the time of the collapse. At the time in Dakha, the authority would approve permits and should have monitored construction, however they did not monitor they would just approve building permits as they did not have enough monitoring staff. MAYOR
ARCHITECT
After Rana Plaza collapsed the architect later said that the building had not been designed for industrial use. “if I had known that it was going to be an industrial building, I would have taken other measures” (Lawrence and Weber, 2017). It was the architect however who constructed the building on the site of a drained swap which was later found to be a ‘spongey’ foundation which would have had an impact on the collapse of the building. Poor-quality concrete and steel used in construction and uneven settlement on saturated soils may also have contributed to the structural failure (Lawrence and Weber, 2017) Rana would of known what materials the architect and builders were using and knowing they were poor quality meant they were possibly cheaper