Question

Why did the Fair Trade movement become popular after the Rams Plaza collapse? Do you feel the movement will continue to grow once working conditions get better?

Answer 1

Collapse of Rana plaza is the worst industrial disaster to this date in history of Bangladesh. The building failing to provide safe working condition and premise to cloth laborers collapsed in 2013 killing thousands of laborers.

Mainly because of unfair trade practices related to treatment of laborers and lack of adherence to internationallabor laws resulted in collapse of the building. However this incident brought people and related and interest parties realize the importance of fair trade practices in labor market. SInce that incident number of practices have been improved in terms of providing better working conditions to laborers. This fair trade movement has taken its place in terms of increased awareness, giving workers voice and transperanncy in trade practices.

The reason for such movement is mainly because of increasing awareness of the unfair trade practices which were in place and rising voices from different concerned parties to make the practices fair and improved. The incident spotlighted abysmal conditions which were faced by laborers in the industry especially the cloth industry including very low wage rate, poor working condition which became the main reason for fair trade movement.

The industry is now better and have improved working condition as result of fair trade movement. However with increase in improvemnet and increasing complaince with international labor laws the movement is being settled down. It is felt that as the industry improves the movement will tend to get slower at pace.