The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, the European brands and buyers’ platform, has warned 553 readymade garment factories of termination of business relations on charge of non-cooperation with its programmes and slow progress in remediation.According to the people involved with the process, Accord issued ‘non-compliance notifications’ (called stage-1 of escalation protocol) to 449 RMG factories due to inadequate cooperation in finalising Corrective Action Plans, executing remediation and refusal to meet the requirements of the platform.The non-compliance notification is the primary warning for business termination, according to the terms of conditions of Accord.The platform issued ‘notices and warnings’ (called stage-2 of escalation protocol) to 104 factories. In the notice and warning the Accord stipulated timeframe to the supplier companies to make certain progress.If the factories fail to make the required progress in the given timeframe Accord will issue letters of ‘business termination’ to the factories (called stage-3 of escalation protocol).Accord has so far cut business relations with 37 suppliers due to their failure in making required progress in remediation.Recently, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association has received from Accord the list of 553 garment factories which are under stage 1 and 2.
