WASHINGTON D.C.—Today, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) applauded President Obama’s announcement that he would indefinitely suspend trade preferences for Bangladesh until it makes marked progress on efforts to ensure worker safety and to protect labor rights. The announcement follows Brown’s call earlier this week, with eight of his Senate colleagues, to take actions that could have prevented the worst garment factory accident in history. Last month, more than 1,100 workers were killed, and hundreds of others permanently disabled, when the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed.

“This announcement is an important first step towards protecting worker safety and labor rights in Bangladesh,” Brown said. “For several years, labor unions and workers rights groups have documented safety and workers rights violations in Bangladesh, which until now, went unheeded. President Obama and his Administration made the right decision today. If we don’t enforce the labor rights criteria of the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), then it’s meaningless. If Bangladesh can’t make marked progress in protecting its own workers, then is doesn’t deserve trade preferences.”  

Specifically, Bangladesh will no longer be awarded preferential duty-free entry through the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences (GSP). According to the office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), the GSP is a program designed to provide preferential duty-free entry to designated countries and territories in order to promote economic growth in the developing world.    

Brown also called on President Obama to continue his outreach to the business community so that it can use its global leverage to demand safer worker conditions in countries like Bangladesh. Following the factory collapse last month, eight U.S. senators wrote to major retailers urging them to reconsider signing the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.

Earlier this week, Brown, Robert Casey (D-PA), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Angus King (I-ME), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Carl Levin (D-MI), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR) urged President Obama to do all within his power to pressure Bangladesh to support safer working conditions that could have prevented the worst garment factory accident in history. The senators urged the Administration to suspend trade preferences for Bangladesh until it makes marked progress on efforts to ensure worker safety.

Brown has long fought to improve the working conditions of workers both domestic and abroad. For example, in July 2012, Brown chaired a hearing of the CECC regarding workers’ rights. He also sent a letter to the CEO of Apple on the harsh and often-dangerous working conditions faced by workers in the company’s China-based factories. In March 2012, the Fair Labor Association (FLA) issued findings of an investigation into the factories of Foxconn, an Apple supplier. Apple has made commitments to take concrete steps to address findings identified in the report.

 

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