The IndustriALL Global Union, a global labour rights organisation, yesterday urged clothing retailers and brands not to boycott Bangladesh, as the apparel sector plays a vital role in the country to bring people out of poverty.IndustriALL made the call on the third anniversary of the collapse of the Rana Plaza building that took the lives of 1,135 workers and injured more than 2,500. Garment workers desperately need to keep their jobs, so boycotting brands is not the way forward, the organisation said in a statement.“In many countries, the garment industry is one of the few avenues to financial independence for women. What garment workers do not want are low wages, excessive working hours and unsafe factories.”Multinational companies are responsible for the working conditions at their suppliers, according to United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.Yet many fashion brands have little control or little idea of how much workers are being paid, how long they are working or how safe the factories are, according to the statement. “Brands’ short lead times, last minute changes to production specifications, and a general lack of consideration of how their demands impact on workers put an impossible burden on the women making our clothes.”“Any change in the global garment industry has to be systemic and enforceable. Acting alone will not bring about the necessary changes needed to improve the lives of garment workers,” IndustriALL said.“Extolling your own corporate and social responsibility credentials is worthless, unless you are working with your competitors to change the basis on which clothes are ordered and traded.”Garment factories in countries like Cambodia and Bangladesh produce for several brands, it said. If one factory raises wages in any significant way, the factory is undercut by other factories and soon goes out of business.There needs to be a critical mass of brands to wake up and realise that their supply chain operations are abusive and unsustainable, it said.The Rana Plaza collapse on April 24, 2013 was a turning point for the garment industry, which showed that self-regulation and self-auditing by brands of their supplier factories had been a catastrophic failure.It made possible the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh — a legally-binding agreement between global unions and over 200 multinational fashion brands — to inspect and repair more than 1,600 garment factories.IndustriALL is now working with a group of committed brands, including Top Shop, Primark and Next, on a process called ACT, which has the potential to revolutionise the global garment supply chain.The goal is to introduce wage negotiations in garment supplying countries that involve trade unions, factories and brands on an industry-wide basis.Setting higher wages across the entire industry prevents individual factories and brands from negotiating lower prices based on lower wages, the organisation said.“To achieve this, brands must reform their purchasing practices so that factories are able to pay workers more. An industry-wide agreement also provides a means of negotiating better working conditions as well as productivity improvements.”The ACT process is already underway in Cambodia and there are plans to roll it out in Bangladesh, Myanmar and Pakistan.“Garment workers need a voice; they need to use their collective strength to show that, without them, nothing would get made.”“That’s why brands and customers must support them in their efforts to organise and fight for better pay and working conditions,” IndustriALL said.
