DHAKA – Bangladesh’s ready-made garment industry has become a model of workplace safety – this is the remarkable claim of the country’s leading garment industry trade body. Talking to press this week on the eve of the Rana Plaza five-year anniversary, Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) president, Siddiqur Rahman, claimed the country has achieved a “paradigm shift” in workplace safety and worker rights in its apparel industry over the last five years. “The world has witnessed how the ready-made garment industry of Bangladesh has addressed challenges and become a model of workplace safety,” he said while speaking at a press conference organised by the BGMEA.
The BGMEA president said all export-oriented apparel factories have been inspected for structural, fire and electrical safety by one of either the Bangladesh Accord, Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety or the Bangladesh Government’s own ILO supported safety initiative. Remediation progress is said to be around 88 per cent in the Accord affiliated factories and 90 per cent in the factories under the Alliance.
While Bangladesh’s garment sector has made huge strides on safety issues in recent years, there are plenty who believe it is not yet ready to be held it up as a model for workplace safety. Consider, for example, the fact that thousands of garment factories continue to undergo remedial works to fix safety issues.
Indeed, a recent report from the NYU Stern Centre for Business and Humans Rights claimed “dangerous conditions” remain present in thousands of garment factories in Bangladesh. For this reason, the Clean Clothes Campaign and other NGOs are demanding all brands producing in Bangladesh sign the 2018 Transition Accord.
The NYU Stern report suggests people working for subcontractor – small second and third-tier factories often completely unknown to Western brands – are at most risk.
Talking to Reuters recently Paul Barrett, deputy director of NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights said: “Subcontractors present a big challenge. These smaller shops help ‘mother’ factories handle sudden volume increases and changed orders. No one has an exact count of subcontractors, most of which operate with little or no regulation. While the NYU Stern Center estimates that there may be as many as 3,000 of these factories, the government denies a subcontracting system even exists.”
