A letter from avaaz.org

Dear friends, 

Hundreds of Bangladeshi women have been burned or crushed to death while making *our* clothes! In days, major fashion companies could sign an agreement that will either be a strong safety code or a weak PR ploy. If 1 million of us get the CEOs of H&M and GAP to back a life-saving code, the rest will follow:

We've all seen the horrific images of hundreds of innocent women burned or crushed to death in factories while making our clothes. In the next few days we can get companies to stop it happening again.

Big fashion brands source from hundreds of factories in Bangladesh. Two brands, including Calvin Klein, have signed a very strong building and fire safety pact. Others, led by Wal-Mart, have been trying to wriggle out of signing by creating a weak alternative that was pure PR. But the latest disaster has triggered crisis meetings and massive pressure to sign the strong version that can save lives.

Negotiations end in days. H&M and GAP are most likely to flip first to support a strong agreement, and the best way to press them is to go after their CEOs. If one million of us appeal directly to them in a petition, Facebook pages, tweets, and ads, their friends and families will all hear about it. They'll know that their own and their companies' reputations are on the line. People are being forced to make *our* clothing in outrageously dangerous buildings -- sign on to make them safe, and forward this email widely:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/crushed_to_make_our_clothes_ss/?badBLdb&v=24792

The recent tragic collapse fits a pattern. In the last few years, fires and other disasters have claimed a thousand lives and left many others too injured to work. Bangladesh's government turns a blind eye to dismal conditions, allowing suppliers to cut costs to make clothes at a pace and price that global fashion giants expect. The big brands say they check up, but workers say the companies' own audits can't be trusted.

The worker-backed safety agreement calls for independent inspections, public reports about supplier factory conditions, and mandatory repairs. It’s even enforceable in courts of the companies’ home countries! Full details of which companies were buying from the factory that collapsed weeks ago aren't yet known, and there's no evidence H&M or Gap did so. But workers have died in other H&M and GAP supplier factories in Bangladesh and getting them onboard now would put tremendous pressure on other companies to follow.

The companies are making up their minds right now. Let’s call on the CEOs of H&M and GAP to lead the industry by signing the safety plan. Sign your name then share this email widely -- once we reach 1 million we’ll take out ads that they can’t miss:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/crushed_to_make_our_clothes_ss/?badBLdb&v=24792

Time and time again, Avaaz members have come together to fight corporate greed and support human rights. Last year, we helped 100 Indian workers safely return home when a Bahraini corporation refused to let them leave. Let's now take a stand to stop the deadly race to the bottom in factory safety.

With hope and determination, 

Jamie, Jeremy, Alex, Ari, Diego, Marie, Maria-Paz, Ricken and the Avaaz team 

PS - Many Avaaz campaigns are started by members of our community! Start yours now and win on any issue - local, national or global:http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/start_a_petition/?bgMYedb&v=23917 

MORE INFORMATION:

Collapse renews calls for safety agreement (Wall Street Journal)
http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2013/04/25/bangladesh-deaths-renew-calls-for-safety-agreement/ 

15 May deadline set for Bangladesh safety plan (Industriall)
http://www.industriall-union.org/15-may-deadline-set-for-bangladesh-safety-plan

Western companies feel pressure as toll rises in Bangladesh (NBC News)
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/western-companies-feel-pressure-toll-rises-bangladesh-6C9624611 

Avoiding the fire next time (The Economist)
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21577078-after-dhaka-factory-collapse-foreign-clothing-firms-are-under-pressure-improve-working 

Bangladeshi garment factory death toll rises as owner arrested on border (The Guardian)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/28/bangladesh-garment-factory-collapse-owner-held 

Bangladesh factory safety under scrutiny after collapse (CBC)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/04/26/bangladesh-factory-building-safety.html 

Hazardous workplaces: Making the Bangladesh Garment Industry Safe (Report, Clean Clothes campaign)
http://www.cleanclothes.org/resources/publications/2012-11-hazardousworkplaces.pdf/view 

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If you think we're done with neoliberalism, think again

• • George Monbiot
  • The Guardian, Monday 14 January 2013 20.30 GMT

The global application of a fraudulent economic theory brought the west to its knees. Yet for those in power, it offers riches

‘The demands of the ultra-rich have been dressed up as sophisticated economic theory and applied regardless of the outcome.' Illustration: Daniel Pudles

How they must bleed for us. In 2012, the world's 100 richest people became $241 billion richer. They are now worth $1.9 trillion: just a little less than the entire output of the United Kingdom.

This is not the result of chance. The rise in the fortunes of the super-rich is the direct result of policies. Here are a few: the reduction of tax rates and tax enforcement; governments' refusal to recoup a decent share of revenues from minerals and land; the privatisation of public assets and the creation of a toll-booth economy; wage liberalisation and the destruction of collective bargaining.

The policies that made the global monarchs so rich are the policies squeezing everyone else. This is not what the theory predicted. Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and their disciples – in a thousand business schools, the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD and just about every modern government – have argued that the less governments tax the rich, defend workers and redistribute wealth, the more prosperous everyone will be. Any attempt to reduce inequality would damage the efficiency of the market, impeding the rising tide that lifts all boats. The apostles have conducted a 30-year global experiment, and the results are now in. Total failure.

Before I go on, I should point out that I don't believe perpetual economic growth is either sustainable or desirable. But if growth is your aim – an aim to which every government claims to subscribe – you couldn't make a bigger mess of it than by releasing the super-rich from the constraints of democracy.

Last year's annual report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development should have been an obituary for the neoliberal model developed by Hayek and Friedman and their disciples. It shows unequivocally that their policies have created the opposite outcomes to those they predicted. As neoliberal policies (cutting taxes for the rich, privatising state assets, deregulating labour, reducing social security) began to bite from the 1980s onwards, growth rates started to fall and unemployment to rise.

The remarkable growth in the rich nations during the 50s, 60s and 70s was made possible by the destruction of the wealth and power of the elite, as a result of the 1930s depression and the second world war. Their embarrassment gave the other 99% an unprecedented chance to demand redistribution, state spending and social security, all of which stimulated demand.

Neoliberalism was an attempt to turn back these reforms. Lavishly funded by millionaires, its advocates were amazingly successful – politically. Economically they flopped.

Throughout the OECD countries taxation has become more regressive: the rich pay less, the poor pay more. The result, the neoliberals claimed, would be that economic efficiency and investment would rise, enriching everyone. The opposite occurred. As taxes on the rich and on business diminished, the spending power of both the state and poorer people fell, and demand contracted. The result was that investment rates declined, in step with companies' expectations of growth.

The neoliberals also insisted that unrestrained inequality in incomes and flexible wages would reduce unemployment. But throughout the rich world both inequality and unemployment have soared. The recent jump in unemployment in most developed countries – worse than in any previous recession of the past three decades – was preceded by the lowest level of wages as a share of GDP since the second world war. Bang goes the theory. It failed for the same obvious reason: low wages suppress demand, which suppresses employment.

As wages stagnated, people supplemented their income with debt. Rising debt fed the deregulated banks, with consequences of which we are all aware. The greater inequality becomes, the UN report finds, the less stable the economy and the lower its rates of growth. The policies with which neoliberal governments seek to reduce their deficits and stimulate their economies are counter-productive.

The impending reduction of the UK's top rate of income tax (from 50% to 45%) will not boost government revenue or private enterprise, but it will enrich the speculators who tanked the economy. Goldman Sachs and other banks are now thinking of delaying their bonus payments to take advantage of it. The welfare bill approved by parliament last week will not help to clear the deficit or stimulate employment: it will reduce demand, suppressing economic recovery. The same goes for the capping of public sector pay. "Relearning some old lessons about fairness and participation," the UN says, "is the only way to eventually overcome the crisis and pursue a path of sustainable economic development."

As I say, I have no dog in this race, except a belief that no one, in this sea of riches, should have to be poor. But staring dumbfounded at the lessons unlearned in Britain, Europe and the US, it strikes me that the entire structure of neoliberal thought is a fraud. The demands of the ultra-rich have been dressed up as sophisticated economic theory and applied regardless of the outcome. The complete failure of this world-scale experiment is no impediment to its repetition. This has nothing to do with economics. It has everything to do with power.

Resolve the Real Greek Crisis (New York Times)

By EDWARD P. JOSEPH and ANNA TRIANDAFYLLIDOU

Published: February 5, 2013

Resolve the Real Greek Crisis

FOR Greeks suffering from the wrenching pain of a long economic crisis, a youthful savior has emerged. Alexis Tsipras, the leader of the second-strongest party in Parliament, the Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza, is not yet 40, but his relentless attack on austerity has made him a favorite to head the next government.

Tsipras has been visiting power centers in Europe and the United States to bolster his credentials and to press his case for debt relief. He argues that Europe is bluffing with its threat to expel Greece from the euro zone if it doesn’t implement severe cuts.

But even if Tsipras wins the next election, he is likely to fail in his bid for an international conference that would provide dramatic debt relief. The reason is that Greece’s main creditors, Germany in particular, suspect that Tsipras is bluffing as well. They know that the Greek economy hangs like a thread, and that failure to sustain debt relief would plunge Greece into economic free fall.

Thus the impasse over Greece that serves as a brake on Europe’s recovery and has left a quarter of Greeks unemployed is likely to continue — unless Tsipras widens his message. He could wring substantial concessions out of Germany and other creditors if he does what no Greek leader has managed to do: get Greeks to accept the need for national reform, not just austerity and not just debt relief.

The truth is that Greece is not only broke, it is broken. “Uncompetitive” does not describe the pathology of the Greek economy. It is a myriad of small businesses, unproductive subsidies, inflated state contracts and Byzantine regulations seemingly designed to inhibit productivity. In the past, it was sustained by tourism, olives and other small-scale produce, and, of course, loans — which have evaporated. Real relief for Greeks can only come from foreign investment, not loans and not debt relief. And few will invest in Greece without real reform. Indeed, some of Greece’s most successful companies are fleeing the country.

Ironically, even as segments of Greek society still unleash noisy protests, the public knows the truth: They are not innocent victims but willing, if small-scale, participants in a corrupt system. This helps explain why expressions of public anger have been — given the breadth of the disaster — relatively tame. A protest movement known as the “aganaktismenoi,” or the resentful, has emerged, demanding accountability. Long-concealed scandals have come to light, and some prominent members of the political elite have gone to prison, or face the prospect of being jailed. But there is no unifying agenda among protesters, many of whom are animated solely by the prospect of losing their benefits.

Moreover, for all their suffering, most Greeks are aware just how much worse their situation could become. They understand that they have a lot to lose if the country’s fragile banks collapse or if the country defaults. The value of their euro-denominated bank accounts, if converted into new drachma, would plunge.

If anything, anger in Greece is focused outside the country, at Germany in particular, or disgracefully, on the most vulnerable people — poor immigrants — who have benefited least from the country’s corrupt system. Either way, the misdirected anger only distracts Greece from much-needed introspection. And even when there has been reflection, such as the momentary pause in the spring and summer of 2010, Greece has been plagued by the paralysis of collective responsibility: “So maybe I didn’t pay my taxes, but who did?”

The focus of Greek energy these days is not on how to fix the country, but rather on how to survive within the existing system.

At their core, Greeks know better and are not condemned to perpetual cynicism and incipient poverty. They need a leader with the courage and the standing to tell them that the old ways of doing business will not return prosperity.

Greeks have proven that they can move toward meritocracy, as has been illustrated by the general public exam for public administration or university admissions. The unique aspects of Greek culture have their advantages and need not be discarded. Small changes, for example simplifying regulations and putting more information on legislation on the Internet, can have a big effect.

These measures can pave the way for consensus on the larger labor reforms demanded by creditors, very possibly winning the major concessions that Tsipras seeks. Soon, with support from civil society and the Orthodox Church, momentum toward national renewal could reach a tipping point, where the rewards of complying with rules will outweigh flouting them.

In short, Greeks do not have to “become Germans.” They only have to face up to the fact that you can’t get something for nothing forever. A politician with the courage to speak this truth and appeal for a new compact that matches individual and business responsibility with concrete steps toward state transparency can win an election, debt relief and real hope for a battered people.

Edward P. Joseph is senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins Center for trans-Atlantic Relations. Anna Triandafyllidou is professor at the European University Institute.