'Another Factory Fire in Bangladesh: This Time, a Product of Rage' By Robert J.S. Ross

On Friday, November 29, as Americans chose between sleeping off Thanksgiving turkey and shopping at dawn for electronic and clothing bargains, another big factory fire burned in Bangladesh.

At first glance, it seems a horribly familiar story line: one of the largest garment factories in Bangladesh -- employing perhaps 18,000 workers -- burnt down. This follows the tragic Rana Plaza collapse that killed more than 1,100 workers in April, and the Tazreen fire that killed 112 in November. As a recent report by the International Labor Rights Forum documented (and for full disclosure, to which I contributed), Bangladesh has been a careless inferno of workers' lives over the last 20 years.