Date of publication: December 31, 2010
Source: AlterNet
Author: Lauren Kelley
A fire breaks out in a garment factory near Dhaka, Bangladesh. Fueled by mountains of fabric, the ninth and tenth floors of the building are quickly engulfed in flames, and hundreds of workers rush, panicked, toward the exits. But two of the six exit doors are locked, and all of the building's fire extinguishers are either missing or out of order. In the frenzy, many workers are trampled by their colleagues, while others leap out windows, seeing no other means of escape. In all, at least twenty-eight people die, many of them burned alive. Dozens more are injured.
The disaster is reminiscent of the infamous New York City Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911, when nearly 150 factory workers, most of them women, died as a result of locked exits and a lack of fire safety equipment.
But the above story did not occur in the early 20th century; it happened just two weeks ago at the That's It Sportswear Ltd. factory, which manufactures clothing for major American retailers like the Gap, H&M, Target, JC Penney, Walmart, Kohl's and Abercrombie & Fitch...