More important than assigning blame in the garment factory building collapse in Bangladesh that killed more than 400 workers and injured more than 2,500 is ensuring that such preventable tragedies don't happen again.

Not that there's not plenty of blame to go around: the owner of the shoddily constructed building; the factory managers who sent workers back into the building after cracks were discovered; a country whose government is accused of having insufficient and rarely enforced safety regulations; and Western companies that have steadily been shifting production from China to Bangladesh in search of the lowest labor and production costs.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni told Al Jazeera that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed's government, which took over in 2009, has been working to improve labor standards and working conditions, but that the industry's problems couldn't be solved overnight.

The European Union is already putting pressure on European retailers and warning of trade sanctions against Bangladesh.

That might help, but it's also up to clothing companies with suppliers in Bangladesh to ensure that their clothes aren't being made in dangerous sweatshops.


A CNN Money story notes that many large companies whose clothing brands are made in Bangladesh have health and safety guidelines for their suppliers, and they claim they audit those suppliers. But apparently those audits aren't made public, so there's no accountability. Consumers have no way of knowing whether their favorite retailer's low-price clothing is contributing to misery and death for workers in Bangladesh or elsewhere.

Larger retailers and clothing companies can do better and be more transparent. And since they make up such a large part of one of Bangladesh's largest industries, they can wield enormous influence in pushing Bangladesh's government and garment industry to improve working and safety conditions.

Maybe that improvement can't be done "overnight," but it should be done before the next preventable catastrophe happens.