KEEP IT QUIET

In order to boost profits the capitalist class have got to cut overheads anyway they can. A favourite with big-time high street retailers like C&A is to out-source production to Asian countries where the workers are unorganised, poorly paid and safety conditions are lax. "Survivors have described how a fire tore through a multi-storey garment factory just outside Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, killing more than 100 of their colleagues in one of the worst such incidents in recent years. ......Witnesses said many workers leapt from upper stories in a bid to escape the flames. Twelve workers died in hospital from injuries sustained in falls, officials said, bringing the overall toll to 123 dead and more than 150 injured. The blaze will focus attention once more on the conditions in which workers producing clothes for sale in the west work. Fires in textiles and garments factories across south Asia have killed hundreds in recent months. More than 280 died in one at a site in Karachi, Pakistan, in September." (Guardian, 25 November) The report goes on to say "there was no immediate response from C&A." Surprise, surprise. RD