One hundred and twenty-one readymade garment units which are on the factory inspection list of Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, a platform of North American retailers, have failed to achieve desired level of progress in remediation. Alliance which was formed after the Rana Plaza building collapse that killed more than 1,100 people, mostly garment workers, in April 2013, has been working to improve safety standards in the RMG sector in Bangladesh. The platform at a meeting with the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association on Sunday alleged that despite getting enough time the remediation progress was not satisfactory in the factories as the authorities there were reluctant to do the work. It sought intervention from the BGMEA to expedite the remediation work in the factories and said if the defaulting factories would make further delay in implementing the corrective action plan it would inform the brands concerned about their (the units) progress status. BGMEA vice-president Shahidullah Azim told New Age that Alliance informed them about the slow progress in remediation in 121 factories. ‘The BGMEA will look into the matter and take steps so that the factory authorities complete the remediation work in their units within the shortest possible time,’ he said. Azim said they would sit with the factory owners to know about their problems and try to find ways out from the problems. Officials of Alliance, however, said the factory owners got time from seven months to one year but the progress in remediation work in most of the factories was almost zero. The factories expressed their unwillingness to implement the corrective action plan in their units showing excuse of getting no export orders, a senior official of Alliance said. He said that the follow-up inspections in the factories were being hampered due to non-cooperation from the owners. Azim said that access to finance was important to ensure remediation and the factories, where the progress was slow, were suffering from low orders as buyers shifted orders from the factories which are located in shared buildings. The Alliance official, however, said of the 121 factories, a very few were located in shared buildings. According to Alliance, most of the factories got time from seven to nine months for remediation after the approval of corrective action plan and some of them got one year. ‘Despite getting a long time, some factories achieved only one per cent progress and some attained less than 20 per cent progress,’ the Alliance official said. After the Rana Plaza building collapse, North American retailers including Walmart and Gap formed Alliance undertaking a five-year plan which set time frames and accountability for inspections and training and workers empowerment programmes. Alliance started inspection in the Bangladesh garment factories in February 2014 and completed primary safety assessment at its listed 662 factories by July that year. Alliance found immediate risks at 22 factories and sought decisions from a government-set review panel. The panel closed eight factories fully, 12 partially and allow two to operate with reduced load. According to a recent report of Alliance, the platform completed first remediation verification visits in 528 factories and completed the second remediation verification visits at only 17 factories. Alliance wants to complete final assessment in 100 per cent of the factories by 2017.
