Christopher Tong's Blog

Perhaps the most fatal garment-factory accident was blogged about by my fellow classmate Jordan Yin. In this event, Rana Paza (commercial building), collapsed and killed 1129 people. Unfortunately, the underlying cause of this reason is about business ethics. The day before the collapse, workers noticed cracks within the building and evacuated. When Sohel Rana was interviewed later, he said nothing was wrong with the building and they should continue work as usual. The next day the building had collapsed. There are several reasons why the building might have collapsed. One, the building was planned to only hold shops rather than factories. The heavy weight of the machinery might have been too much for the infrastructure to handle. Secondly, four floors were built without a permit. However, regardless of these reasons, I feel the blame rests on Sohel Rana. Either he lied about the results of his inspection, or he didn’t actually inspect the building. In his motivation to maximize profits by having workers work despite dangerous working conditions, he told the workers it was safe. The cracks in the building alone should have been enough of a sign to close the building. By disregarding this sign, he killed over a thousand workers. This is an excellent example why business ethics are important. Having a lack of it caused many people to lose their lives.

Work Cited

Butler, Sarah. “Primark to Pay £6m More to Victims of Rana Plaza Factory in Bangladesh.” Theguardian. N.p., 16 Mar. 2014. Web.

picture: N.d. Rana Plaza, Dhaka.