In 2013, the Rana Plaza factory collapse killed over 1,100 people who were just trying to get by, working in horrible–and ultimately deadly–conditions for horrible pay.
Since then, I’ve refused to buy new clothes from the stores that didn’t sign the Bangladesh factory safety plan. Most of them, though, have since agreed to compensate the families. So that’s something.
And selfishly, there are only so many ways that I can make my life challenging at once. Macys is one of the few places I can reliably find work clothing that fits me and my budget.
So while I’m not completely boycotting new clothes from those stores, I am trying to do a better job of reading labels and understanding what conditions are like around the world. Hopefully that way I can give my money to manufacturers that are, at least, not the worst of the worst.
I’m not entirely at peace with this, and I don’t think I should be. Maybe I should still be boycotting. But my energy is limited.