The ‘Accord’, supported by European brands such as ‘Zara’ and ‘Hennes & Mauritz’, is planning to continue its efforts for three more years. While on the other hand ‘The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety’ is planning to narrow down its operations and make smaller organization to maintain a check and balance for the safety measurements.
After the ‘Rana Plaza tragedy’, Bangladeshi government tried to upgrade its monitoring and inspection activities but they didn’t bore much fruit. Criticizing the role of governmental body, Rob Wayss, executive director of the Accord said that the national safety regulatory authority is not prepared for the kind of that his organization has been doing.
According to the “International Labor Organization” the amount of effort shown by Bangladeshi government is quite unsatisfactory. The Accord covers ‘1600’ factories, Alliance covers 666 (with a small overlap between the both), while 754 factories are covered by government, and statistics show the performance of government covered factories is very poor as compared to the other agencies. According to an official of ‘Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments’, their department is fully capable of covering the factories which are currently under ‘The Accord’. On the other hand Jennifer Bair, associate professor of sociology at the University of Virginia, has very different views. According to him the governmental authorities have got their hands pretty full.
The history of Bangladeshi garments industry is tainted with accidents causing hundreds of deaths on annual basis. Recent research shows that the factories have become less dangerous since 2013, although deadly accidents still continue to destroy lives.
The Western International organizations ‘Alliance’ and ‘Accord’ are very strict towards the factories that come under their jurisdiction. They blacklist the factories which do not ensure certain safety measurements. This is mainly because the Western retailers want to have better reputation on international forum. The Accord and Alliance claim to have identified and resolved 80% of factory safety issues. According to ‘Accord’, the more simpler safety measures like the removal of lockable and collapsible gates from nearly every factory while complex are taking time to be implemented.
The efforts of Walmart, a founding member of the ‘Alliance’ are admirable. They want to create ‘locally-run safety monitoring organization’, with a simple goal of introducing more progressive thought process towards the industrial safety issues. David Hayer, Senior Vice President of Global Sustainability at Gap, which is a member of the ‘Alliance’, has some very positive words about the work done by the ‘Alliance’ and ‘Accord’. According to a report by the ‘Alliance’ and ‘Accord’, more than 80% of the identified issues in safety inspections have been fixed.
The situation in Bangladesh is still quite far from being fine. Bangladeshi government still needs help when it comes to monitoring safety. According Sayeeful Islam, managing director of Concorde Garments, He would be very worried for his country if ‘Accord’ and ‘Alliance’ were to leave Bangladesh.
