Jobs of about a million apparel workers have become uncertain since over 1,000 factories housed in shared and converted buildings virtually received no supply orders from the buyers. The owners of these factories said that they were facing acute hardship due to refusal of western buyers to buy from them due to their safety concerns. Apparel industry sources said that lack of supply orders forced many medium and small factories housed in shared and converted building to shut down in last 34 months leaving huge liabilities. They said that another 1,000 such factories were facing the crisis of survival. The owners of over 400 factories though keen to relocate from shared and converted buildings they were unable to do so due to scarcity of land and moratoriums on extending power and gas connections and non availability of money, said industry sources. ‘Since the collapse of Rana Plaza in 2013, over 300 apparel factories housed in shared buildings were closed due to buyers’ refusal to place supply orders,’ former Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association vice president Mohammad Hatem told New Age. If the situation persists the owners would be forced to shut down most of the small and medium factories, he said. He said that the failure of several factory owners to pay workers’ wages on time caused periodic unrests at small and medium factories. We often receive complaints from workers of some small factories that they did not get their wages and try to resolve the issues by arranging meetings between the aggrieved workers and the owners, ’ said Hatem. He said that unless the government provided policy support it would be difficult to address the issues of thousands of workers whose factories were facing closures leaving huge liabilities. Business uncertainties facing apparel factories housed in shared buildings could cost the jobs of 1.2 million workers as it would be difficult to provide them alternative employments, , said former Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association vice president Shahidullah Azim. Before the collapse of Rana Plaza over 1,500 factories were housed in shared and converted buildings and the number of such factories dropped to about 1,200, he said. Facing an acute crisis of survival, he said, owners of several factories, though keen to relocate, were unable to do so due to scarcity of land, money and the moratorium of gas supply connections, said Azim. He appealed to the government to provide policy support for running the factories taking the livelihood of the workers into its consideration. Recently, a list of 553 factories that could not fix the safety faults as expected were sent to the BGMEA by the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, the European buyers’ consortium. Some of the factory owners said that they took no interest to fix the safety issues as they were not getting orders from the Accord signatory buyers. They also said that as they were receiving no orders from the buyers they failed to pay workers wages on time. Factory remediation, they said, required huge expenditures. And the owners of many factories housed in shared building requested the Alliance for Bangladesh worker Safety, the platform of North American buyers, not to shift orders from them. They said that shifting orders from their factories affect the workers as well as the progress of remediation.
