For many years the dirty secret of the steadily growing Bangladeshi garment industry has been its disposable workers.  The lowest paid garment workers anywhere in the world, hundreds of them have died in preventable factory fires and building collapses during the last two decades, and countless more have been injured.  After each tragedy, labor groups have asked: How many more workers will have to die before the industry changes? Workers have demanded “no more fires.”

Sen. Steinberg had been approached by actress Julia Ormond in 2007.   Ormond had recently founded the Alliance to Stop Slavery and End Trafficking [ASSET] and received funding from the Clinton Global Initiative.  ASSET was working on the 2008 reauthorization of the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act [TVPA] of 2000.  Ms. Ormond approached Sen.