The government has taken a move to approve a compliance protocol namely ‘escalation protocol’ to bring the readymade garment factories, which are not responding to the remediation process, under regulation.Earlier, International Labour Organisation drafted an escalation protocol for the factories assessed under national initiative and all the parties including the government and RMG factory owners agreed to it in principle but factory owners were dilly-dallying in complying with the protocol, labour ministry officials said.‘At a government-ILO workshop on RCC (remediation coordination cell) governance and future of industrial safety unit, held in August this year, the ILO placed the draft of escalation protocol and we agreed in principle to adopt it. Now the labour ministry has decided to approve the protocol to ensure a time-bound remediation plan in the RMG factories,’ Syed Ahmed, additional secretary of labour ministry told New Age on Thursday.The labour ministry has formed a tripartite committee comprised with government officials, representatives from Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association and trade unions to finalise the draft protocol with some necessary changes, he said. Syed hoped that the escalation protocol would be approved soon and then all parties would be obliged to comply with the protocol. According to the officials of the Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments, there would be six stages in the escalation protocol including warning meeting, first warning letter, second warning letter, suspension of export licence and utility declaration, final notice before closure and issuance of factory closure order as per the section 61(2) of labour law.The DIFE on September 20 issued separate letters to the presidents of BGMEA and BKMEA asking them to stop providing UD to 219 non-compliant RMG factories in three weeks as the remediation progress in the units was not satisfactory. Out of the 219 units, 134 are registered with BGMEA, 74 with BKMEA and 11 units are members of both the trade-bodies.After one and a half month of the request of DIFE, the BGMEA on November 4 refuted to stop issuance of utility declaration for 131 member factories for non-compliance saying that it would not be appropriate to stop issuance of UD before January 2019 as there were some export orders in the factories.‘We have requested BGMEA and BKMEA to stop issuance of UD for 219 factories as per the proposed escalation protocol but they refused to comply with the process,’ said Md Shamsuzzaman Bhuiyan, inspector general of DIFE.Hopefully the BGMEA and BKMEA would comply with the protocol once it was approved by the labour ministry, he said.Following Rana Plaza building collapse in April, 2013 that killed more than 1,100 people, a total of 3,780 garment factories were assessed under the three initiatives — European retailers’ platform Accord, North American buyers’ platform Alliance and the government-led and ILO-supported national initiative.Out of the 3,780 garment factories, 1,549 were inspected under the national initiative. Of them, 531 were closed, 69 relocated and 193 transferred to Accord and Alliance lists.The factories that fell under the national initiative completed 32 per cent of remediation works, while 11 factories fixed 100 per cent safety faults, DIFE officials said.
