When most people think of ways they can prevent disaster, checking the label on their shirts isn’t usually one of them. But several recent disasters in Bangladesh—including last week’s horrific building collapse in Savar, a suburb of Dhaka—highlight how being willing to pay more for clothing and other goods just might save lives.

A building collapse in last week killed more than 400 people and has shined a spotlight on the deplorable working conditions in the Bangladeshi apparel industry. The April 24 failure came just a day after an engineer inspecting cracks told the building owner it should be closed immediately, according to the New York Times.

“This is not a crack,” the owner, Sohel Rana told local journalists, according to the Times. “The plaster on the wall is broken, nothing more. It is not a problem.”

Although some businesses in the building, Rana Plaza, closed, others told workers they risked loosing their jobs work if they didn’t come to work the next day.

“This is an example of the most irresponsible and insensible work by the authority,” Selim Newaj Bhuiyan, former Bangladesh deputy director of Fire Service and Civil Defense, told the Christian Science Monitor. “When the building was warned, how could the authorities ask the workers to come to work?”

Such is the state of apparel manufacturing in Bangladesh, though, by many accounts. In recent years, the country has seen unprecedented growth in the garment business, fueled by rising prices in China. The demand for cheap labor and maximized profits has grown into an $18 billion industry that accounts for more than 80 percent of the country’s exports and 10 percent of its gross domestic product, according to Bloomberg News.

As companies scrambled to capitalize on those new opportunities, buildings like Rana Plaza were expanded hastily and without much oversight. In the case of Rana Plaza, the politically well-positioned Ranas were able to bypass building permits and add additional floors to the original five-story structure without inspection, according to the Times. Even so, the Plaza is far from an anomaly.

“For the garment industry, Savar grew quickly, and in an unplanned manner,” Ashraf Uddin Khan, the former mayor, told the Times. “There are so many buildings like Rana Plaza in Savar.”

About half of the garment factories in Bangladesh don’t meet the countries safety standards, according to sources cited by Bloomberg News. Among their issues are shoddy wiring, an inadequate amount of exits, and a lack of emergency equipment. The woeful conditions have led to more than 630 people dying in 30 incidents since 1990, according to the Christian Science Monitor. Those incidents include more than 112 people who could not escape when a locked factory caught fire in November and another factory collapse that killed 64 people in 2005.

Although Bangladeshi authorities and political cronyism are to be blamed for much of the country’s garment business failings, many feel that it’s up to the global companies making profits—Europe, Canada, and the United States account for the lion’s share—to instigate change.

That might be a tall order considering retailers such as Wal-Mart have been asked to weigh in on safety compliance before, with tepid results. A 2011 proposal to require suppliers to deliver annual safety reports to the mega-retailer was soundly defeated on the grounds that it would cost too much, according to Reuters.

Others argue that consumers themselves should apply the pressure, refusing to purchase items that aren’t manufactured with concern for human welfare. The expense of making basic safety and wage improvements wouldn’t even be that costly, experts say.

Alas, as M.T. Anderson points out in an opinion piece in the New York Times, the dilemma is as old as the textile industry itself. It’s a cycle that has repeated itself many times and in many places. Which is not to say it shouldn’t come to an end.

“It’s well past time for all of us to reflect on this cycle and how cheap it would be to break out of it if only there were enough public pressure on the apparel industry,” he writes. “The cost for us is minimal; the cost for others is great.”