Rana Plaza Collapse Case Study

On April 24, 2013, the Rana Plaza, located in Dhaka, Bangladesh, was destroyed. In this event, more than 1000 people were killed in this catastrophic accident (BBC News). As based on a video documentary from The New York Times, titled Rana Plaza Collapse Documentary: The Deadly Cost of Fashion, this was the deadliest accident in the garment production history to date (Fitch). But on the standards of business and moral ethics, this was not an accident at all. In fact, there are multiple parties to blame in this incident in Bangladesh. In this case, the government, the factory owners, and to an extent, the employees all have some responsibilities as to why the building collapsed when it could have be prevented. Lastly, to prevent future incidents, all three parties would need to incorporate a triple bottom line system to keep each party in check with each other. Of the three parties that …show more content…
Before the incident, the worker themselves know that there are dangerous work conditions at the Rana Plaza, as based on a journal article found in the Virginia Quarterly Review. As the article states, there were workers who knew about the crack but still decide go go to work instead (Motlagh 66). Yet, even with this knowledge, the workers are too afraid to even speak up to authority. This is an example of “anti-utilitarianism” or a violation of this philosophical theory. Utilitarianism, as described on Encyclopædia Britannica, is an effort to provide an answer to the practical question “What ought a person to do?” (Encyclopædia Britannica) If the factory workers would have spoken up in this scenario, they would have been doing what would have been deemed right ethically, yet they did not. Therefore, due to the lack of attempt by the factory workers to perform an act of utilitarianism, the factory workers also assumes a fair share of blame in this