Rmg Factory Inspection
US, EU buyers to work together on common safety standards
After weeks of wrangling, the North American and European buyers on Saturday agreed in principle to work under a common standard for inspection of structural integrity and fire safety of the garment factories in Bangladesh. Mostly EU buyers and labour rights group formed the EU Accord on Fire and Building Safety in May after the Rana Plaza collapse but major US retailers refused to join the team and formed North American Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety Initiative.
The buyers and rights groups held a day long technical workshop with Bangladesh garment sector stakeholders on common standards for assessment of building, fire and electrical safety of RMG factories in Bangladesh at the Sonargaon Hotel in the capital on Saturday.
After the meeting, the labour secretary Mikail Shiper said that all the parties had agreed to a common assessment instrument and it should be based on laws and regulations of Bangladesh.
The labour and employment ministry and the International Labour Organisation jointly organised the programme.
After EU and US buyers formed separate platforms, following the killing of 1,132 garment workers in Rana Plaza collapse at Savar, Bangladesh garment factory owners have viewed that two separate code of conduct by two platforms would create complexities.
The labour secretary said that the national tripartite committee, comprising of representatives of government, garment owners and labour organisations, would coordinate the setting of common standards for inspection with the assistance of the ILO and in consultation with the Accord and Alliance.
The EU and US buyers want to inspect 2,250 factories which supply products from them.
Mikail said that the government had already developed an instrument with Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology for the primary assessment of the garment factories that would be beyond the inspection of Alliance and Accord. The number of garment factories in the country is about 4,500.
The secretary urged the Alliance and Accord to provide their factory list within short time as the government was going to start its inspection on September 15.
The US ambassador to Bangladesh, Dan Mozena, said that the US and the EU had adopted a Sustainability Compact, which identifies critical steps for addressing the issues of labour rights, fire safety and factory structural soundness.
These steps include development of an effective inspection regimen to ensure compliance on these issues, creation of a publicly accessible database that posts inspection findings and required remedial actions, he said.
Regarding the Generalised System of Preferences, Mozena said that the US government provided a plan of action and Bangladesh has to fulfil the conditions for restoration of GSP facilities.
The GSP action plan also a course of concrete actions to help Bangladesh prevent any future disastrous fires and building collapses like Tazreen Fashions and Rana Plaza, Mozena added.
Country director of ILO Srinivas Reddy said that it was a good beginning that all parties had agreed to a common minimum floor.
‘We want to work in a coordinated way and to avoid the duplication of inspection under a common platform,’ he said.
Reddy said that under the national tripartite committee the factory would be inspected in two phases.
In the first phase all of the factories will be inspected to find out the risks within six months and in the second phases work will be on the renovation, retrofitting and relocation and this process will take time for two to three years, he said.
The national tripartite committee will decide what type of measures will be needed in the second phase, Reddy added.
Charge de Affairs of the EU to Bangladesh Phillip Jacques said, ‘We have met here to prevent tragedy in the garment sector of Bangladesh and but it would not be easy.’
National and international stakeholders have to come to a point by this programme and the decision would have to be either unique or unified.
-With New Age input
