The progress achieved in the upgradation of readymade garment (RMG) factories, in terms of safety and security of workers, taken under the Alliance, a group of North American buyers, reportedly has been slow. The Alliance started the work on improving the safety standard of its selected factories some months after the collapse of the Rana Plaza in 2013. A report published by the Alliance late last week said full remediation of only 24 out of the 677 factories on its work list could be accomplished under its programme scheduled to be completed in June 2018. Undeniably, there exists a lack of interest on the part of a section of owners of garment units to make investments in improving the safety standard of their factories. But some other factors, including, among others, political unrest, lack of qualified engineers, problems with the import of safety equipment and absence of consistent and clearly-set criteria for the purpose of standardisation have largely contributed to the delay in the remediation work. But amidst ‘unsatisfactory’ progress in remediation work, there was at least one positive development — a remarkable drop in the number of fire incidents in garment factories in the country. In 2012, there were 250 officially recorded garment factory fires that took lives of 115 people. In contrast, there were just five fire incidents in 2015 and not a single life was lost in those. The decline in the number of fire incidents with no loss of life serves as a pointer to a growing awareness among apparel industry people and workers about the need for preventing the accident. The collapse of a multi-storied building due to construction faults is a rare incident. But the fire incidents are not. Such incidents can be prevented to a great extent with appropriate safety measures in place. The Alliance with due support from the government has been asking the RMG unit owners to accomplish that task diligently. In addition to ensuring fire safety measures, a number of factories are in need of physical remediation and relocation. The Alliance has been encouraging the owners of the factories from which its constituents are sourcing apparels to do the needful. But not all owners have been reported to be interested primarily because of the additional expenditure involved in doing that. The Alliance has already severed its ties with a number of errant factories. Besides, it has imparted fire safety training to thousands of workers and security guards of the RMG sector. The Alliance and another identical entity known as Accord have been trying to improve the safety situation in the apparel industry in Bangladesh. It is hard to say that the owners are extending all possible cooperation to both. Rather, on a number of occasions, they have vented their resentment over the operations of the two buyers’ representative bodies and a few government policymakers have also joined them. However, such resentment is a natural outcome when any attempt is made to discipline or streamline any errant group. But all concerned need to understand the fact that the buyers coming under pressure from the consumers and the rights groups at home have been engaged in improving the safety standard of apparel factories here. Buyers have not withdrawn from Bangladesh despite some major factory accidents. The growth in apparel exports during the past couple of years is a testimony to that fact. So, instead of opposing their move to improve safety situation, the factory owners should extend all possible cooperation to them.
