On May 20th, GAP held its annual shareholder meeting in San Francisco after which it announced a huge decision about its production practices – GAP agreed to stop using angora wool because of the extreme harm it inflicts on angora rabbits.
Decisions made by corporations matter. While protecting the lives of angora rabbits will make a difference, GAP failed to take the action called for by protestors outside the shareholder meeting – protect the lives of its garment workers making GAP products.
Instead of making plans to compensate the families of the workers who died or were injured in the Aswad Composite Mills fire in Bangladesh last October, or sign the legally-binding Accord on Fire and Building Safety, GAP spent its energy censoring the efforts of human rights activists to save its public image.
When activist organization 18MillionRising.org launched the website GapDoesMore.com, they claimed that GAP had finally agreed to compensate the families of 7 workers killed in the Aswad factory fire. They intended to pressure the company to finally join 160+ other companies and Bangladeshi Unions and sign onto the Bangladesh Safety Accord to prevent future deaths at its supplier factories.
Instead, GAP was forced to issue a statement saying that the website was a hoax, and that the company was, in fact, not ‘doing more’.
Will you join our allies and demand answers about what the corporation intends to do to better protect its workers and provide for the families of those who have died?
Sign on to support the open letter to GAP Inc. and urge the company to DO MORE for people.