The Alliance for Bangladesh Workers Safety, a consortium of North American fashion retailers and buyers, has cut business relations with seven more Bangladeshi readymade garment factories due to failure to remove lockable exits and make required progress in remediation. Alliance, in an announcement on Wednesday, said that the initiative suspended seven additional factories from its compliant suppliers list for their failure to show evidence of remediation progress. The move brings the total number of factories suspended by the Alliance to 104. The suspended factories are : Stoffatext Fashions Ltd and Dana Sweater Industries Ltd at Gazipur, Wucho Fashion Ltd at Ashulia, Sajib Fashion Wear Ltd at Sutrapur in Dhaka and Legend Textiles Ltd, Banalata Garments Ltd and Trendex Furniture Ind Co Ltd at Chittagong. All the factories have failed to provide evidence of remediation and the first five factories failed to remove lockable exits from the units, the buyers group said. ‘Ensuring the safety of workers in Alliance-affiliated factories is our highest priority,’ said Jim Moriarty, country director of the Alliance.He said that any factory that was unwilling or unable to make progress on the repairs required to meet the Alliance safety standards was removed from the list of Alliance-complaint factories. In a statement, the Alliance said that it had performed independent inspections on the structural, electrical and fire safety of all factories from which its members procure products and the factories were provided with a Corrective Action Plan designed to help them address safety issues and achieve compliance with Alliance safety standards. The Alliance also provided technical advice and access to low-cost loans to assist factories with remediation. ‘Now in year three of its five-year initiative, the Alliance is on track to remediate all critical safety issues in its active factories by 2018. To date, 63 percent of all safety issues in Alliance factories have been corrected and 40 factories have completed all necessary repairs outlined in their CAPs,’ the buyers’ platform said. 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 like Walmart and Gap, undertook a five-year plan which set timelines and accountability for inspections and training and workers’ empowerment programmes. The Alliance has so far conducted initial inspections in 759 factories.
