The Alliance, a group of mostly of North American apparel brands and retailers, Wednesday vowed to source from Bangladeshi manufacturers despite the recent terror attacks. “Despite these unspeakable tragedies, the Alliance and our member companies will continue to stay the course– because improving safety for the millions of men and women who make a living in Bangladesh’s garment sector is a moral imperative,” Alliance country director James Moriarty told a teleconference. The conference was organised to discuss updates from the Alliance. “As we review and update our policies to help keep our staff and contractors safe, our work to improve safety in Bangladesh’s garment factories will continue at full speed,” Mr Moriarty, a former US envoy to Bangladesh, added.
The Alliance that includes major brands like Gap and Walmart was formed to improve the safety in the readymade garment industry in Bangladesh after the Rana Plaza building collapse that killed more than 1100 workers. “. In the first quarter of 2016, the Alliance suspended another six factories for failing to do enough to improve safety, bringing the total to 83, while 28 factories have completed all the required remedial works in line with the corrective action plans (CAP), Mr Moriarty said. And across all factories, more than one-third of the issues most critical to life safety have already been addressed, two years ahead of the deadline. The Alliance avoids penalising factories that are making steady progress. “This new approach allows us to encourage factories to fast-track remediation of issues most critical to life safety, rather than concentrate on relatively simple, but not as critical, fixes,” he noted. The Alliance has completed training for democratically elected worker safety committees in 34 factories, including the initial pilot programme of 16 factories and expects to launch the training for close to 60 more in the next few months. More than 1.1 million workers in over 770 factories now have access to Alliance’s confidential 24-hour worker helpline-which allows them to safely and anonymously report concerns-safety or otherwise-within their factories. “To date, we’ve logged more than 66,500 calls from both Alliance and non-Alliance factory workers,” he added.
