Bangladeshi Garment Workers Fight Back Summary

Bangladesh, a country situated in southern Asia, is home to approximately 168 million people, 4 million of whom currently face the gruesome challenge of working within the country’s garment industry [2]. In an attempt to survive and evade the line of poverty, workers within this industry, whom are often women and children, are exposed to daily labor exploitation and unsafe environments. The article, “Bangladeshi Garment Workers Fight Back”, by James North, examines the country’s successful market internally in an attempt to reveal the negative impact the industry has on the lives of these laborers. North argues that the poor infrastructure of the industry, in combination with the want for quick, cheap work amongst mega-corporations, has resulted

In one section, for example, North mentions the overexploited labor workers and the wages they earn in comparison to the hours they work. As North explains, “… the standard wage – for an eight-hour day, six-day week – is still only $38 a month.” (North, 2013). This $38 value would seem extremely low from the perspective of a reader in Canada or the United States, but this amount may mean something extremely different in the local setting. For people who are not familiar with lifestyles outside of their own, the reader is not informed about specific living costs and average wages across the country as a whole. Without the comparison, the reader cannot exactly acknowledge the mistreatment of labor workers within Bangladesh’s garment industry since the dollar amount may hold an entirely different value. This may also be a technique used by North to acquire the reader’s support by providing little information that only backs his argument, thus encouraging a bias. Furthermore, another area of concern lies in the fact that there does not seem to be a proposed, clear-cut solution to the problem at hand. Throughout the article, North implies that the sources held most accountable for the problems are flawed governing laws and the importers who refuse to act. This creates uncertainty in the relevance of the piece in relation to the reader since North does not seem to state anything the reader themselves can do in that very instant to possibly produce a