Senior fellow Vijaya Ramachandran is interviewed on NPR's Planet Money about the factory collapse in Bangladesh and labor costs in Africa.
From the episode:
H&M, Zara, Wal-Mart and JC Penney all buy t-shirts from Bangladesh. Soon, Planet Money will too.
As you may have heard, we're making a t-shirt and telling the story of how it's made. We decided a few months ago to work with Jockey to make our t-shirts. Our women's shirt will be made in Colombia. Our men's shirt will be made, in part, in Bangladesh.
But horrifying news has been coming out of Bangladesh's apparel industry recently. A garment factory collapsed a few weeks ago, killing more than 1,000 people. Last year, a factory fire killed hundreds of workers.
As part of the t-shirt project, we'll be traveling to Bangladesh to report on the industry. On today's show, we start to ask: Is buying a t-shirt from Bangladesh a good thing or a bad thing for the people of Bangladesh?
Listen to the episode.
