The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, the consortium of European retailers, has terminated business relations with five more factories as they failed to implement workplace safety measures in their units. The retailers’ platform in a statement said that the Accord signatory companies cut their business relations with four factories due to their failure in implementing workplace safety measures and with the other as its authorities refused to allow access to Accord inspection teams to do the follow up inspection. The factories are Calvin Fashion Limited at Chittagong, Copper Co Ltd at Chittagong Export Processing Zone, Alpha Knit Apparels Ltd at Ashulia in Dhaka, Jaycee’s Apparels Ltd at Moghbazar in Dhaka and Sincere Knit Garments Ltd (Unit 1) at Fatullah in Narayanganj. Earlier, the Accord terminated business relations with three factories — Sadaf Fashions Ltd, Mega Chois Knitwear Ltd and Florence Fashions Ltd — due to their failure in implementing corrective action plan in time. The platform has so far warned more than 100 factories of cutting business relations over failure in implementing workplace safety measures. The Accord in its statement said that Alpha Knit Apparels Ltd, Calvin Fashion Limited and Sincere Knit Garments Ltd were inspected for fire, electrical and structural safety by the retailers’ group in 2014. After many attempts by the Accord staff the factories failed to submit a corrective action plan, the Accord said. According to the EU retailers’ group, the Copper Co Ltd was inspected in 2014 and the factory management did not allow access to Accord inspection teams to do the follow up inspections at the factory on February 28. The structural integrity of Jaycee’s Apparels Ltd was inspected in August 2014 and the factory authorities was asked for conducting detailed engineering assessment of the building as the inspectors found major concerns with the structure. Later on, the factory failed to conduct detailed engineering assessment and refused the Accord to conduct initial fire and electrical inspections in the unit. 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.
