Five foreign diplomats at a meeting on Thursday pressed the Bangladesh government to augment the pace of trade union registration in the readymade garment sector and to lower the instances of rejection of applications for formation of trade union in the sector. At the meeting with senior officials of commerce, labour and foreign ministries at the commerce ministry’s conference room in Dhaka, ambassadors from the European Union, the United States and the Netherlands and high commissioners from the United Kingdom and Canada expressed their dissatisfaction over a slow pace of formation of participation committees and safety committees in the RMG factories. The five envoys and commerce, labour and foreign secretaries sit together on regular basis to review the progress Bangladesh has been making in line with the Sustainability Compact which was launched in July 2013 as an international response to the Rana Plaza building collapse that killed more than 1,100 people, mostly garment workers. EU delegation head Pierre Mayaudon, US ambassador Marcia Stephens Bloom Bernicat, UK high commissioner Alison Blake, Canadian high commissioner Benoit-Pierre Laramee, Dutch ambassador Leoni Margaretha Cuelenaere, International Labour Organisation country director Srinivas Reddy, commerce secretary Hedayetullah Al Mamoon, labour secretary Mikail Shipar and foreign secretary Shahidul Haque attended the meeting. According to the meeting sources, the diplomats said that the rate of trade union registration in the RMG sector was far lower than the numbers of factories in the sector while the number of rejection of applications for registration was high. They also expressed concern over the delay in implementing corrective action plans in the RMG factories which have been inspected under a government-ILO joint initiative.The envoys pressed the government to form a remediation coordination cell so that the cell can bear the responsibility for ensuring factory safety once the timeframe of two platforms of global buyers ends. ‘We have assured them [ambassadors and high commissioners] that the remediation coordination cell will be formed by December this year,’ labour secretary Mikail Shipar told New Age on Thursday.The labour secretary informed the diplomats that the number of rejection of applications for trade union registration decreased in recent times.‘We welcome the steps already taken to ensure worker rights but more still needs to be done. It is the responsibility of all partners to do all they can to ensure more progress on worker rights, including in economic zones,’ British high commissioner Alison Blake told reporters after the meeting. She said that Bangladesh made significant progress over the last few years with hiring of new inspectors, assessments of factory safety, and a public factory database.‘It is crucial to ensure that we do not lose momentum and that progress continues to be made,’ Blake said. She emphasised a full completion of remediation to make the RMG factories safer saying that it is everyone’s priority that factory improvements move ahead efficiently and that there are consequences for factories that do not take the required steps. Otherwise, the whole industry will suffer, Blake added. In the meeting, the labour ministry placed a progress report which has been prepared in line with the Sustainability Compact. In the report, the ministry showed that a total of 507 trade unions were registered in the RMG sector while 133 safety committees were introduced. It also said that a remediation framework was needed for longer-term sustainability of the current efforts of structural integrity and fire safety of the factory buildings. The government will form a remediation coordination cell involving national-level stakeholders with ILO assistance, it said. The RCC will provide technical assistance to the factories for remediation and before formation of the cell, the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishment will take forward the remediation efforts, the labour ministry report said.
