Two Hundred Bangladesh Factories Shut on Labor Unrest
Five months after the collapse of a factory killing over 1,000 workers, thousands of Bangladeshi garment workers took to the streets, blocked a highway, and closed over 200 factories for a third day on the demand for higher wages. Bangladesh has seen a huge influx of garment work at least in part because wages on average are the second-lowest in Asia. Since the incident in April, many U.S. retailers, including Wal-Mart, Target, and H&M, have increased pressure on their suppliers or taken steps to ensure increased safety standards in the factories where the clothes they sell are produced, but have held firm on wages. Exactly how these strikes will conclude is unclear.
See "Two Hundred Bangladesh Factories Shut on Labor Unrest", Arun Devnath, Bloomberg News, September 22, 2013