As she walked to her job as a garment worker, Rima Khatun was passing the Natural Sweater Village on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, when a boiler exploded inside. A wall of the two-story factory crashed onto a nearby sidewalk, injuring 10 pedestrians.
Hit by falling rubble, Ms. Khatun, 20, was killed instantly.
Her death in December incited outrage in Bangladesh, where 4.5 million people work in 4,500 garment export factories. It also stirred memories of the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013, in which a Dhaka factory collapse killed more than 1,100 people, mostly women.
While the accident that killed Ms. Khatun was much smaller, it raised fresh concerns in the country that worker safety may be backsliding after years of remarkable progress.
Since the Rana disaster, considered the deadliest in the garment industry’s history, Bangladesh has experienced one of the most effective campaigns of the globalized era to improve labor and safety conditions.
The enormous toll — which one union called a “mass industrial homicide” — forced retailers like Target, Walmart and H&M to confront the rampant safety and labor abuses in their fashion supply chains. Fearing customer boycotts, Western brands worked with unions, factory owners, nongovernmental organizations and the Bangladeshi government to improve safety, with notable results.
Fire alarm systems have been installed in thousands of factories, and fire doors, sprinkler systems, electrical upgrades and improved building foundations have proliferated.
Wages, if still painfully low, have risen. Labor rights have improved.
But now Bangladesh, the second-largest garment exporter after China, stands at a crossroads as the safety deals put in place after the Rana disaster expire. For many, Ms. Khatun’s death was a sign of what will come if the industry is allowed to return to past practices.
A power struggle now unfolding over who controls factory safety has ramifications not just for those in Bangladesh, but for consumers around the world.
In one corner are local factory owners, who make up much of the political establishment, and who believe it is time for international monitoring to end, with responsibility for worker safety returned to Bangladeshis.
In another corner are labor groups and their nonprofit supporters, who are fighting to at least preserve hard-won gains.
Then, there are the Western brands, hyperconscious of both their costs and their reputations, which came under sharp attack after Rana Plaza.
All want a say in how to police the $34 billion worth of apparel exported annually by Bangladesh.
Caught in the middle are millions of workers, many of whom fear for their safety.
‘Unprecedented Improvements to Factory Safety’
Before the collapse at Rana Plaza, Western companies like Primark, Mango and PVH (the parent group of Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein) largely depended on their own auditing practices — or the word of owners — to monitor suppliers in Bangladesh. Accidental deaths and ill treatment were commonplace.
Soon after the disaster, the Western brands reached two landmark agreements on safety.
One was the legally binding Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, which was largely for European brands likes H&M, Hugo Boss and Primark. The other was the less-constraining Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, which was mostly signed by American companies such as Walmart, Gap and Target. Designed for five-year terms, both were ratified in 2013.
In both agreements, the signatory foreign brands were required to disclose their supplier factories publicly in the hope that transparency could improve working conditions. Both created safety standards and mechanisms to enforce them, although the Accord, with a legally binding arbitration provision, was seen as the stronger of the two. The Alliance had no such clause, but could impose fines and expel members that violated its terms.
Independent safety monitors funded by the brands inspected more than 2,500 factories, blacklisting more than 300. By the time the initial program mandates ended in May 2018, safety standards had been radically improved.
“The Accord and Alliance were accidents of history facilitated by the scale of the Rana Plaza tragedy,” said Michael Posner, a professor of ethics and finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business. “Because so many companies participated, they made unprecedented improvements to factory safety.
“But the government of Bangladesh is not prepared to have outside groups lead this process going forward. The question now is how to sustain this progress as leadership shifts to local hands.”
‘Time for Bangladesh to Claim Its Own Space’
With the international monitoring deals winding down, Bangladesh’s factory owners, many of whom serve in Parliament or own newspapers and television stations, want to return responsibility for safety to Bangladesh.
The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, a private organization that lobbies on behalf of 4,375 factory owner members, has created a replacement system with the government’s support: the Ready Made Garments Sustainability Council.
The new safety-monitoring group, whose board consists of international brand representatives, labor rights groups and garment makers, is meant to consolidate the oversight of safety into a single Bangladesh-based body that replaces the previous initiatives.
A transition is already underway. All inspections, training and complaints previously overseen by the Accord will be absorbed into the new council by May 31. By midyear, the Accord, which was granted an extension beyond its original 2018 end date, will cease to exist.
While the strictures of the new monitoring group would be legally binding for brands and factory owners, “compliance should be a voluntary step” said Rubana Huq, the president of the garment manufacturers association.
Many Bangladeshi owners of small and medium-size factories, Ms. Huq said, are increasingly squeezed between demands to invest in expensive training and safety measures; growing competition from low-cost foreign markets like Ethiopia; and global brands that push prices downward.
Because of these pressures, the new monitoring group would not focus on levying punitive measures against noncompliant factories, whose finances are suffering.
“It is time for Bangladesh to claim its own space, clearly defined by rules that benefit and satisfy all stakeholders,” Ms. Huq said, urging a more collaborative model focused on a greater sharing of responsibility between buyers and suppliers, both on remediation costs and employees’ well-being.
One of Bangladesh’s foremost female business leaders and the managing director of the Mohammadi Group, which owns lingerie and sweater factories, Ms. Huq belongs to Dhaka’s social and political elite, as do many fellow factory owners. These ties have critics worried about conflicts of interest that could hinder enforcement of the replacement deal.
“The Accord is and was successful because of its binding nature, enforceability, transparency, powerful complaint mechanism, its equal distribution of power between labor and brands, and the inspectorate’s independence,” said Christie Miedema, a spokeswoman for the Clean Clothes Campaign, which advocates for better working conditions in the industry.
“Take away one of those elements,” Ms. Miedema added, “and a monitor will lose force, especially in a country like Bangladesh, where civil society is under pressure and commercial interests wield a lot of power.”
‘Workers’ Lives Will Be at Even Greater Risk’
Ms. Huq denied the new approach would put workers at risk.
“The question of backsliding doesn’t even arise here,” she said, adding: “If there’s anything that matters to us the most, it’s labor and the importance of a sustainable work force. Safety is key.”
But the latest report from Accord, in January, showed a marked slowdown in remediation efforts. Inspected factories improved at only a 2 percent rate, compared with 6 percent in 2018, 9 percent in 2017 and 22 percent in 2016.
A total of 1,101 factories remain behind schedule in addressing safety hazards, with 45 percent still lacking adequate fire detection and alarm systems.
After Rana Plaza, a common standard was reached on structural fire and electrical safety in the garment industry. Proposed changes to the national building code have been fast-tracked, and are expected to be put into place soon. Among the proposals affecting garment factories would be the elimination of requirements for automatic fire alarms and the option to use fire extinguishers instead of sprinklers.
Those championing alternate routes to the new regulatory council seem to have little room to maneuver.
The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, the agreement among 23 predominantly American retailers, has already disbanded, its operations transferred to an independent Bangladesh-based successor, called Nirapon (an amalgamation of words meaning “safe space”).
Nirapon has facilitated inspections at as many as 600 garment factories, trained workers on safety and formed a worker help line. But it was suspended for six months by the Bangladeshi high court in October, after an influential factory owner requested that it be brought under the new safety-monitoring group. The Supreme Court began hearing Nirapon’s appeal on Thursday.
“If Nirapon remains unable to operate free from external pressure, the investments of the Bangladesh government and the industry itself will waste away,” said Moushoumi Khan, Nirapon’s chief executive. “Workers’ lives will be at even greater risk.”
With unanswered questions hanging over the state of safety monitoring groups in Bangladesh, concerns are now growing that some major Western brands, keen to protect their sourcing at any cost, will revert to relying on their own auditing practices. Walmart expressed disappointment at the suspension of Nirapon, of which it is a member, saying, “This may lead to some brands and retailers relaxing their safety standards and would likely increase cost and complexity for suppliers and facilities.”
However, a company press officer also said that in light of Nirapon’s suspension, the company had temporarily returned to using local auditors whose reports are being assessed by Walmart. The company will continue to do that as long as the legal restrictions on Nirapon remain in place.
‘Cheap Clothes Are Not Cheap’
Even if Bangladesh’s progress on safety is maintained under the new system, major challenges remain on other fronts, like low wages and abuse.
According to Labour Behind the Label, a nonprofit advocating workers’ rights, 80 percent of garment workers in Bangladesh say they have experienced or witnessed sexual violence and harassment on the job.
Last year, garment workers staged widespread protests over a minimum wage that is currently 8,000 taka, or $94 per month, for the lowest of seven skill grades. Union membership remains small, in part because of intimidation and fear of reprisals.
“Cheap clothes are not cheap” said Kalpona Akter, executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity. “Someone always has to pay for them. And that someone is a worker. ”
The country also has thousands of factories that are subcontractors, or do not supply Western brands at all, and so are not held to account by any of the safety agreements; they largely produce for local fast fashion brands, or for retailers from India and China.
A crumbling old bazaar in the center of Dhaka — far from some of the newer factories on the city outskirts — has been turned into a cottage factory for companies in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
On a recent visit, wires dangled from the ceilings, and dark, filthy passageways were loaded with rubbish and stacks of merchandise. The windowless rooms were stiflingly hot, and children as young as 9 sat snipping threads off pairs of pants on the floor. How many people these types of workshops employ, and under what conditions, is hard to quantify.
“Bangladesh workers outside factories tracked by safety groups don’t have a voice at all,” said Peter McAllister, the executive director of the Ethical Trading Initiative, based in London.
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After Factory Disaster, Bangladesh Made Big Safety Strides. Are the Bad Days Coming Back? - The New York Times
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