As Bangladesh Toll Hits 400, Calls Grow to Grant Workers the Same Protections as Labels They Make

Today's global May Day actions include a march of thousands of workers in Bangladesh demanding workplace safety following last week's factory collapse that left more than 400 dead and 150 missing. The collapse is now being described as the deadliest accident in the history of the garment industry, and marked Bangladesh's third industrial accident in five months. The building's owner has been arrested and a Bangladeshi court has frozen the assets of the owners of the five garment factories that were inside. Most of the workers reportedly earned an average annual salary of $38 a month roughly 21 cents an hour to make apparel for a number of Western companies. We're joined by the leading labor rights activist, Charlie Kernaghan, director of the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights. "The companies are hiding behind these phony codes of conduct that are meaningless. What the workers want are legal rights," Kernaghan says. "We need to stand up and just say, 'You can bring anything you want into the United States, but you are not bringing it in if it was made by children or the workers that were denied their right to organize.' The lift that would give to the Bangladeshi labor movement would be enormous."

Watch more reports on the Bangladesh building collapse and 2012 factory fire at

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