Two separate platforms of western fashion brands and retailers have cut business relations with four more readymade garment factories in Bangladesh for their failure to comply with the safety standard of the buyers’ groups. Alliance for Bangladesh Workers Safety, the North American buyers’ group, has cut business ties with three while Accord on Fire and Building Safety, the European buyers’ group, terminated business relations with one of its suppliers as the factories failed to make required progress in remediation. The Alliance suspended factories are : Hi-Fashion Ltd, Fortune Fashion Ltd and Knitex Apparels Ltd in Chittagong.The Accord suspended ties with Fresh Fashion Wear Limited of Gazipur. With the four, the total number of RMG factories with which global buyers cut business relations in different times on workplace safety grounds reached to 130. Of them, the Alliance has cut business ties with 93 factories while the Accord with 37 supliers. According to the Alliance statement, the Hi-Fashion Ltd and Fortune Fashion Ltd have failed to provide evidence of remediation; and also have failed to remove lockable gates from the factories. The Knitex Apparels Ltd was suspended from the supplier list of the buyers’ group due to closure of the factory, Alliance said.The Accord statement said that the platform terminated business relations with Fresh Fashion Wear Limited due to noncompliance with Occupational Safety and Health complaint mechanism. The platform said that on 19 May 2016, a safety complaint was submitted to the Accord by an RMG union federation and several workers which included allegations of reprisal for workers exercising safety protections of the Accord. The Accord had made numerous efforts to arrive at a resolution with the owners of the factory in relation to matters raised in the complaint but the factory owner refused to engage with the Accord OSH complaint mechanism. After the Rana Plaza building collapse, which killed more than 1,100 people, mostly garment workers, in April 2013, North American retailers, including top brands Walmart and Gap, formed the Alliance and European retailers formed the Accord undertaking a five-year plan which set timelines and accountability for inspections and training and workers’ empowerment programmes. The Alliance has so far inspected 870 factories while the Accord inspected more than 1,600 factories.
