Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, the consortium of European retailers and buyers, has warned of cutting business relation with 119 readymade garment factories in which the progress of remediation works is not satisfactory. The Accord in its quarterly aggregate report said that the platform had been increased its efforts to accelerate the pace and level of remediation works at factories where execution of corrective action plan was inadequate or too far behind schedule. The Accord said it was worried that more than a thousand factories were behind schedule with remediation works. According to report, the Accord has so far issued non-compliance letters to 90 factories as the engineers are not satisfied with the remediation works at the units. In other 29 cases, the Accord has issued non-cooperation letters to factories for lack of cooperation in the CAP development process, the report said. Despite repeated warning from the buyers’ group 18 factories have not taken any action to make progress in remediation works and the Accord advised the signatory companies procured from those factories to issue a notice and warning letter to the factory authorities. If the companies, following the letters, do not take any action to make adequate progress in remediation works, buyers and retailers in the factory will be required to invoke the provisions article 21 of the Accord, the report said. According to the Accord article, each signatory company shall require that its suppliers in Bangladesh participate fully in the inspection, remediation, health and safety and, where applicable, training activities. If a supplier fails to do so, the signatory will promptly implement a notice and warning process leading to termination of the business relationship if these efforts do not succeed. The Accord has so far terminated business relations with three factories due to their failure of temporarily evacuation of the units on safety ground and refusal to implement workplace safety measures. Following Rana Plaza building collapse on April 24, 2013 that killed more than 1,100 people, mostly garment workers, Western retailers and apparel brands, in response to public outrage, began a major push to improve safety in the Bangladeshi factories linked with their business. The EU brands and retailers including H&M, Carrefour and Mango, as well as 14 American companies formed Accord and the initiative started inspection from February last year. The Accord has so far listed 1,677 factories and the initial safety inspection completed in 1,563 units. According to the Accord statistics, out of listed 1,677 factories, 16 have been relocated and third round inspection is being progressed in about 100 units. During the inspection, Accord found critical findings in more than 50 factories and of which 26 were closed while eight were partially closed as per the decision of a government-set review panel.
