ABSTRACT
Rana Plaza hosted garment factories that functioned as direct suppliers to brands but also took in subcontracted orders. According to our empirical research, the garment production involves more than twice as many facilities than brands and retailers currently monitor directly. While many brands are adamant about their “zero tolerance policy” for unauthorized subcontracting, the policy is largely ineffective in practice. In this chapter we argue that unless business models change and all factories in Bangladesh are brought under a monitoring system that upgrades the entire sector, a large portion of the garment workers in Bangladesh will remain unsafe and other tragedies that cost workers’ lives cannot be excluded.
