A global campaign will launch this week (September 5) to mobilise church members primarily in the United Kingdom, United States and Canada to lobby retailers to increase working conditions and wages for Bangladeshi garment workers.

The Church of Bangladesh group, made up of Anglican Alliance, CMS, Church of Scotland, Council for World Mission, Diocese of Llandaff (Wales), Presbyterian Church of the Netherlands (ICCO/PCN), Methodist Church in Britain, Oxford Mission and United Society (US), has produced a justice pack for Bangladeshi workers. Factory staff in Bangladesh are paid 15 cents an hour compared with more than $6 which their US counterparts receive. The pack provides an action pack for churches interested in grassroots campaigning, including Bible studies and letters to send to retailers demanding improvement of working conditions in Bangladesh.

While Australian churches are yet to join the campaign, grassroots support for the rights of Bangladeshi workers is rising in Australia.

Last month, Baptist World Aid launched its Ethical Fashion Report, highlighting a lack of transparency and knowledge of working conditions in the supply chains for some of Australia’s biggest fashion labels. Report co-author Gershon Nimbalker says he’s pleased to see churches getting behind the Bangladesh workers rights issue in particular.

“Bangladesh is the world’s fourth biggest garment exporter, with many Australian clothing manufacturers showing increasing interest in the nation, largely due to how low the production costs are,” he says.

“As we’ve had vividly demonstrated to us in recent months, these low prices come at a terrible cost. The collapse of Rana Plaza, a Bangladeshi garment factory in April this year claimed 1100 lives and was the largest industrial accident since the Chernobyl Nuclear disaster. Beyond just unsafe factories, garment workers in Bangladesh receive the lowest industrial wage in the world. By some estimates, wages are about a fifth of what is needed to even cover the basic necessities for survival (food, water, shelter, clothing, energy and transport). These conditions aren’t just unfortunate, they are unjust.”

When Sydney-based mother of three and teacher, Sarah Crawford read an article in the newspaper about the tragic collapse of the garment factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and the deaths of the 1,100 workers, she began to look into what conditions were really like for the workers who died, and those who survived.

“In one article I read, women weren’t allowed to go to the toilet when they want during the day. So, for women who were menstruating, they’d wear all-black to hide the stains,” Sarah told Eternity.

Sarah lives in Sydney and attends St Paul’s Anglican Church in Castle Hill, where she volunteers to coordinate the large church’s justice ministry. But once she’d seen images of the Bangladeshi factory, and read the stories of the workers, she added another cause to her burgeoning justice belt: the rights of garment workers.

Australian brands including Target, Coles, Big W and Woolworths have been linked with the Dhaka factory collapse, and the subsequent revelations of the working conditions of Bangladeshi garment workers. ABC’s Four Corners programme reported on those conditions, highlighting factories with working conditions that come nowhere near international standards. The report showed workers being abused, working long hours for very little pay and often under the threat of violence if quotas were not met.

After the collapse of the Dhaka factory, an accord, led by a coalition of trade unions, was created to require safety inspections at Bangladeshi garment factories within nine months. In July, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that Coles, Target, Cotton On and Kmart were among the list of Australian brands who had signed the accord. Big W and Woolworths are still to sign.

With her sister Bek McClellan, who lives in Melbourne, Sarah felt compelled to create a petition on change.org to convince Australian companies like Woolworths and Big W to sign onto the Bangladesh Fire and Building Safety Agreement, to ensure that tragedies like the Dhaka collapse never happen again.

“In the words of Martin Luther King, ‘All it takes for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing’. I don’t want to be a good person who does nothing. I want to do something and I want to get everyone behind me to do it as well,” Bek told Professor George Cairns in a video interview for RMIT.

Originally hoping for 8,000 signatures, Bek and Sarah’s petition is now closing in on 10,000.

Sarah says she’s just a regular mum. But she’s been shown a “glimpse of how others live”, and she can’t now just do nothing.

“I used to be like everyone else. Two years ago, I would never have asked where my clothing came from. Even for me, it’s a growing thing. In our house, we did a brand new kitchen. I bought granite bench tops, and then I watched a documentary on the stone quarries in India, where whole families are indebted and will work for their entire lives to try and pay it off. I did my kitchen, and I never even thought to ask, where does the granite come from? It’s more just people here stopping and going, if this is cheap, where does it come from?”

Bek and Sarah’s petition might seem a small act, but it’s got them in the room talking with executives from Australian brands like Woolworths and Target: their voices are being noticed. They’re doing their best to source fair trade clothing for themselves and their families. And they’re talking to anyone who’ll listen about how the God they know loves all people, and compels us to act in love of our neighbour.

The Church of Bangladesh coalition are praying for justice in Bangladesh and inviting all Christians to do the same:

Lord of all, 

For the times that we buy without thought of those who have produced our clothes, when we have sacrificed ethics for economy, we ask forgiveness;

God of justice,

Help us to hate injustice as you do, to speak up for those with no voice, and to stand with those who are forced to work in clothes factories for little reward in Bangladesh; 

King of kings,

We pray for leaders and politicians in Bangladesh, for lawyers and for business leaders, that you would not let them rest until these is justice for the garment workers in that country.

The coalition is also taking the campaign to social media, using the Twitter hashtags #LookBehindTheLabel #garmentworkers and #Bangladesh.

More information:

Get Baptist World Aid’s Ethical Fashion Guide

Read Eternity’s report on the Ethical Fashion report: Who is being exploited so you can wear your favourite label? 

Get Church of Bangladesh Coalition resources here.

Read Sarah Crawford’s blog for Oxfam Australia on her petition for workers rights in Bangladesh.

Sign Sarah and Bek’s petition on change.org.  

Image: Used under CC Licence, Flickr/Niloy