Success stories are always full of sweet and sour events, happy and sad memories since achievements do not come on a silver platter. What could be a better example of this fact other than our ready-made garment (RMG) industry? The RMG industry, which emerged as a small non-traditional sector of export in late 70s, has now become crucial to our economy as the main source of export earning and employment generation. The industry that started its journey with only 130 workers and export earnings of $12,000 is now a $25-billion sector which has created employment for around 4.4 million people. Of them 80 per cent are women. Now Bangladesh is the second largest apparel-exporting country in the world. For the last 35 years, the sector has been contributing to the economy with export earnings, employment generation, women empowerment and poverty alleviation. Was the journey of the RMG industry rosy and cosy? The answer is a simple ‘no’. The sector has faced a number of challenges, including child labour issue, MFA quota phase-out and global economic recession, in its way to success. However, the country has dealt with these challenges and been able to sustain the growth of the industry. The biggest challenge for our apparel industry emerged after the tragic Rana Plaza collapse in 2013. Many thought the building collapse would mark the end of the journey of our RMG industry. But what we have seen is the new beginning of our garment industry. The industry that has transformed the economy and lives of millions of people has itself been transformed. The Rana Plaza tragedy was a wake-up call for us — a call for turning around and building a safe and sustainable industry. We can now proudly say as a nation we have once again proved that we can face any challenge, be it natural or manmade. Given the huge size of our apparel industry, ensuring workers’ safety in garment factories was really a daunting task for us but we took it up as a challenge. It is really heartening to see that significant progress has been made in areas of safety standards including fire, electrical and structural safety in garment factories. For the first time in the history of global garment industry, all stakeholders have realised that ensuring safety and well-being of workers is a shared responsibility and this feeling has inspired the government, brands, buyers, suppliers, entrepreneurs, and workers to work hand in hand to ensure a safe and sustainable garment industry. Probably this is the only instance in world business of brands and buyers, who compete with each other, coming together to make an industry safe and sustainable. European brands and buyers formed Accord on fire and building safety while North American brands and buyers initiated a platform namely Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety. National Tripartite Action Plan for Building and Fire Safety was adopted by the government. Both Accord and Alliance completed inspection in 100 per cent of the factories and the National Action Plan will complete 100 per cent of factory inspection by this April. Until now, 2,643 factories have been inspected by three initiatives — of them 1261 by Accord, 647 by Alliance and 735 factories by National Action Plan. What is more encouraging is that only around 1.25 per cent of the inspected factories were found vulnerable and closed down immediately. All the inspection reports of the factories are now available at the Fair Factory Clearinghouse (FFC) database, which is accessible by all the buyers, making our progress ever more transparent and credible. Moreover, factories are implementing corrective action plans provided by Accord and Alliance. The government has taken a number of steps to augment the safety initiatives. The Directorate of Inspection for Factories and Establishments has been upgraded to the status of a department. The government has recruited 200 inspectors, made import of safety equipment duty-free and launched a safety hotline for workers. The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) also took a number of steps to supplement workplace safety efforts by forming a team of 35 fire trainers in December 2013. This team has trained 83,678 workers and staffs in 2386 factories as of today. The Association runs a crash programme on fire safety and so far 20,188 personnel of 2342 factories have been trained. We have also made a significant progress in areas of knowledge, awareness and rights issues as these are important for sustaining the progress. The Labour Law-2006 was amended just within 90 days of the building collapse, making the law more favourable towards ensuring workers’ rights. The dramatic progress in new trade union registration is a tangible result of this amendment. Until 2012, there were only 138 trade unions in the RMG sector, and since January 2013 until now, 304 new trade unions have been registered. The minimum wage of the garment workers has also been increased by 219 per cent over the past five years. The Better Work Programme has been launched by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in Bangladesh. There goes an old adage that every tragedy has a silver lining and it is best related to our RMG industry. The rays of better days have already pierced through the dark cloud of tragic accidents. When all the inspections will be over and the factories complete their Corrective Action Plans (CAPs), the RMG of Bangladesh will obviously be regarded as the safest industry in the world inspected by the foreign experts and buyers under close observation of the government. Then not only we but also all across the world will say ‘Made in Bangladesh with pride’
Source: https://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/2015/04/23/89873
