Rep George Miller (D-CA) wants Bangladesh to enact a fire and safety accord with binding third-party

[pampango]

enforcement."

In the wake of a factory collapse in Bangladesh in April that killed 1,129 garment workers, President Barack Obama announced on June 27 that he was revoking the country’s preferred trade status under the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program. That’s just what Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) had been waiting to hear. Since returning from a five-day fact-finding trip to Bangladesh in May, the congressman had been pressing Obama to suspend the country’s trade privileges until it honored union rights and ensured workplace safety standards.

Specifically, Miller wants Bangladesh to enact a fire and safety accord with binding third-party enforcement. The proposal is backed by Bangladeshi unions, the United Nations and the International Labor Organization.

In Europe you have a much longer historical cooperative relationship between unions and manufacturers or owners. They have a different value set on the rights of workers at work. It’s a different system.

If you look at a number of the European brands, they put people in the factories so that they can see that things are being done as they want them done. The American brands use middlemen. If Wal-Mart says they want 25 cents a shirt, they’ll pay the middleman, who [in order to] to get that contract because the volume’s so big [will] screech out the next three cents of that shirt from the factory owner. But yet H&M, which is large volume [and based in] the EU, for the most part doesn’t use middlemen, as I understand it.

http://www.beyondchron.org/articles/Mr_Miller_Goes_to_Bangladesh_11583.html

Europeans actually "put people in the factories so that they can see that things are being done as they want them done. The American brands use middlemen." Says a lot right there.

"Specifically, Miller wants Bangladesh to enact a fire and safety accord with binding third-party enforcement."

I imagine that "binding third-party enforcement" (particularly if foreigners - UN, ILO - were involved) would outrage conservatives if proposed in the US -lost national sovereignty and all. I hope Mr. Miller is successful.

[byeya]

1. Ex-Maine senators George "Mr Fixer" Mitchell and Olympia Snowe are lobbyists for the importers

of clothing like Wal-Mart and they will use every card in their hands to thwart any meaning protections for the Bangladeshi women who work in these sweatshops.
It's a sad state of affairs but that's what reform is up against. These lobbying organizations are also trying to prevent Europe for pursuing more pro-workers pacts which is in line with European culture.

The corporations are pushing for voluntary compliance.

[pampango]

2. Yes, sadly Mitchell and Snowe are running interference for American clothing companies to keep

European standards from being followed.

[byeya]

3. Rep Miller, a national treasure(imo), is up against Gap, JC Penney, WalMart and the

National Retail Foundation as well as all the Repubies and many Democrats. Bangladesh won't enforce it's own laws - not the only country - and throws up so many roadblocks to unionization that approximately 2% who meet the standards get to negotiate a contract.
Miller is a fighter who doesn't forget so he will keep at it but there's doubt if he can get enough support. I wish him well.