Bangladesh’s garment industry was booming with little consideration for its workers until
the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse confirmed global concerns about poor working conditions.
Today, more than 3.2 million women workers, who make up 80% of the industry’s
workforce, remain subject to these vulnerable workplaces, not only suffering in tragedies
like factory fires and collapses but also struggling through their daily upkeep with poor
health and management’s violations of their rights. At the expense of these workers,
multinational corporations like H&M, Wal-Mart, Nike and more capitalize on a low-cost
business model to successfully compete in global markets and drive up their bottom lines.
But the continuation of this exploitative behavior for trade is unsustainable for these
women, their roles in society, and even U.S.-Bangladeshi trade relations. After the U.S.
joined other global bodies in penalizing Bangladesh for its inability to address workers’
conditions, these conditions only worsened. Hence, this decision memorandum proposes
a more targeted U.S. trade policy tool that aims to improve women’s health and
workplace rights in these Bangladeshi factories.