Western buyers, going beyond their mandate on readymade garment garments (RMG), have suspended industrial units relating to ceramics and furniture due to their failure to make adequate remediation progress, sources said.Farr Ceramics Ltd is the latest industrial unit that was suspended from the Alliance list of compliant factories on February 16 along with four additional garment factories suspended last month, according to the official website of Alliance.Trendex Furniture Ind Co Ltd, located at Korean Export Processing Zone, Chittagong, was another factory beyond the RMG sector that was suspended from the Alliance’s list on October 02 last year.Failure to submit design documents and provide evidence of remediation was cited as the reason for suspension of Trendex while Farr was suspended due to its failure to make adequate remediation progress and lack of communication, according to Alliance website.Alliance for Bangladesh Workers Safety is a platform of 22 North American apparel buyers formed after the Rana Plaza building collapse to improve safety in the country’s RMG sector. Alliance suspended a total of 132 garment factories except Farr and Trendex until to date and some 66 Alliance-affiliated factories have procured all material components as outlined in their Corrective Action Plans (CAPs). On the other hand, Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, another platform of more than 200 global buyers, retailers and trade unions, so far terminated business with some 69 garment factories until February due to their failure to ensure timely workplace safety. The groups inspected structural, electrical and fire safety in some 2,000 factories from which their members source. Each factory is then provided with a corrective action plan (CAP) designed to help it address safety issues and achieve compliance with their respective safety standards.Factories failing to make enough progress will eventually be removed from the Alliance compliant factory list and these units will be labeled ‘suspended’ or ‘terminated’.When asked, Imtiaz Uddin, director of Farr Ceramics Ltd, said: “We are discussing with the Alliance as to why it has made our name public as we are not currently doing business with the Canadian buyer, a member of the platform.”Alliance was formed to inspect safety in garment factories while Farr is the only one from ceramics sector, he said expressing fear that it might hamper business of the company that sells products in the same markets and buyers with the competitors.
