Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, a consortium of North American buyers, on Tuesday said that the platform would form a joint entity with the local partners to oversee factory safety for long term as the tenure of Alliance would expire by this year.‘With Alliance factory remediation nearing completion, our factories have reached the starting line for safety, not the finish line,’ the Alliance said in a statement on the 5th anniversary of Rana Plaza Building collapse that killed more than 1,100 people, mostly garment workers on April 24, 2013. In the aftermath of the disaster, stakeholders from across the industry came together to bring about a sea change in factory safety in Bangladesh and today, millions of men and women work in factories that meet international safety standards, it said.Alliance said that workers were trained to protect themselves in case of an emergency and they had tools to bring immediate attention to safety concerns, including a confidential, 24-hour helpline.The platform claimed that the progress achieved in fortifying worker safety in the last five years had been ‘unprecedented’ and served as a ‘model’ for other countries to follow.Alliance said brands, factory owners and the Bangladesh government have a shared responsibility to sustain these gains.‘That is why the Alliance will join with credible, local partners in the weeks ahead to form a joint entity that will continue to oversee inspections, monitoring, worker training and helpline services over the long term,’ the statement said.
