Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) will sit with 80 RMG factory owners to get to know the reasons behind slow progress of their remediation works as the laters made less progress than others to improve safety standards. The BGMEA board took the decision on Monday following an allegation from Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh that the 80 RMG factories made less progress in safety issues. “We called 80 RMG factory owners to hear about the remediation progress with an aim to ensure workplace safety,” BGMEA Vice-President Mahmud Hasan Khan Babu told the Dhaka Tribune. Primarily, BGMEA has called these factory owners that made 0%-10% progress in their remediation, and others would be called by turns, said Hasan. “We will also try to find out the reasons behind slow progress of remediation.” After the meeting with the owners, BGMEA will cross-check the allegation of the Accord and take measures to expedite the remediation process, added Hasan. Earlier, the Accord submitted a list of 522 RMG factories that produced clothing products for its signatory brands. The factories made less than 40% progress on remediation to improve their workplace safety. The outcries over safety issues began after the Rana Plaza factory disaster that killed over 1,135 workers and injured over 2,500 people on April 24, 2013. After the factory collapse, the Alliance made a commitment to provide financial and technical support to improve fire and building safety standard of RMG factories from which they source products. The Accord has completed its assessment of 1,600 factories alongside publishing Corrective Action Plans for 1,358 RMG units and doing a follow-up inspection on 1,304 factories.
