Articles by Terry Allen

Source: In These Times

Well, isn’t that nice. A few weeks after a fabric-fueled inferno killed more than 100 locked-in garment workers at the Tazreen Fashion factory outside Dhaka, the 23rd Bangladesh Apparel and Textile Exposition gathered under a gold-colored “circular dome with dazzling lighting [like] a gala concert on a broad way [sic] theater,” the conference center’s website boasted. A minute of silence kicked off the proceedings, and then the reps and buyers turned to ensuring that Bangladesh, which has some of the world’s most poorly paid garment workers, wins the race to the bottom of low-wage countries. Last year clothing exports earned the country $19 billion, a whopping 78 percent of its total exports. read more