The Australian textile union has called on the country’s two leading retailers who sell Bangladeshi manufactured clothing to immediately sign an accord on building safety, reports AAP.
Several Australian retailers including Coles, Rivers and Forever New were named in a report by the ABC’s Four Coroners programme, which highlighted poor pay and conditions faced by textile workers in Bangladesh.
The programme heard allegations of terrible building conditions, workers being threatened with violence and exploitation.
Coles and Rivers are yet to sign an accord on building safety in Bangladesh.
Forever New signed the accord on Friday, the programme said.
National secretary of the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia Michele O’Neil said reports of conditions in Bangladesh were ‘shameful and outrageous’.
‘Rivers and Coles must act immediately and sign the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh that was established after the Rana Plaza collapse in Dhaka,’ she said.
‘The survivors and the families of those who died are waiting for companies who use Bangladesh to make their clothes to sign up.’
Kmart and Target have already signed the accord.
In a statement Coles said it had just one supplier in Bangladesh for a small Mix clothing order which will be completed in the next few weeks.
‘Like all of our international suppliers, the factory working on this order has been audited to international standards and complies with our ethical sourcing policy,’ Coles said in a statement.
It said sourcing from Bangladesh had always been small.
‘Coles does not intend to manufacture any further Mix clothing in Bangladesh but if we do in the future we will only source from factories that are accredited under our global ethical sourcing guidelines, and we will sign the Bangladesh Fire and Safety Agreement,’ the company said.
In a statement to the ABC, Forever New said it was committed to ethical conduct and said its Bangladeshi suppliers were not connected to the recent disaster.
Contact numbers on Rivers website were only staffed during business.
The company refused to comment to the ABC saying only: ‘management will be in contact if they are interested’.
Greens consumer affairs spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said a mandatory national scheme was needed to make Australian companies work towards improving conditions in foreign sweatshops.
‘The real cost of Australia’s cheap clothes isn’t measured in dollars and cents, it’s measured in human suffering,’ she said.
‘The companies have shown they can’t be trusted to tackle this issue themselves and the government now needs to implement a national system whereby retailers are made to work towards better conditions for their employees.’
Guardian Australia adds: In an investigation to be aired by ABC’s Four Corners on Monday night, Bangladeshi workers who create clothes for Coles, Target, Kmart and Rivers claim to be forced to work long hours for little pay, with threats of abuse if they miss deadlines.
Shahanas, who earns $3 a day as an employee at Dhaka business Eve Dress Shirts which supplies clothing to retail brand Rivers, told Four Corners: ‘The system is, how many pieces I have delivered in an hour? If I can’t meet it, the abusive language starts.
‘They slap us on the face, on the head and on the back.’
However several Australian businesses are yet to sign the Accord on Fire and Building Safety. More than 50 international brands have agreed to the conditions, set out by global union IndustriALL.
A spokesperson for Big W, which had yet to sign the agreement, told Guardian Australia: ‘Our intention is to sign it, but we are still waiting on details on how it will work. We are in contact with IndustriALL about how it will be rolled out and run.’
Just Group, which owns Just Jeans, Peter Alexander and Portmans, refused to comment on the situation but it is understood it has not signed the accord. Best and Less, which has also declined to sign the accord, did not return Guardian Australia’s calls at the time of publication.
Dr Helen Szoke, chief executive of Oxfam Australia, told Guardian Australia that Australian retailers compared unfavourably with their international counterparts on the issue.
‘We think Australian retailers are dragging their feet,’ she said. ‘We know that 50 big iconic brands Europe and USA have signed this accord – the question is, what’s the problem, in Australia?
‘Even the big sporting apparel companies like Adidas and Nike have become transparent in what they are doing and it’s not impacting their bottom lines, so it does surprise me that there is reticence in Australia.
‘I’m sure we are only seeing part of the story as to what goes on in these sweatshops. The problem is one of transparency – we just don’t know how many other retailers in Australia are using Bangladesh in this way.’
Szoke said that an Oxfam survey of 1,000 Australians found that 70 per cent said they would pay more for their clothes if they knew overseas workers were paid a fair wage and that factories were safe working environments.
‘Consumers need to let these companies know they are upset about the lack of transparency,’ she said.
The Reuters reports: PWT Group, a user of the clothing factory that collapsed in Bangladesh in April, and five other Danish firms, have agreed to sign an international accord on fire and safety in Bangladesh.
The accord was worked out and endorsed by several large mainly European retailers in May after the Rana Plaza factory collapse.
Denmark said IC Companys, DK Company, Bestseller, COOP Denmark, Danish Supermarket and PWT Group, with its Texman and Wagner brands, had agreed to join retailers such as Hennes & Mauritz, Inditex, PVH Corp and Tesco Plc in endorsing the accord.
PWT Group, which had been using a supplier in Rana Plaza for seven years, said the day after the collapse that, while it checked working conditions at the factory, it could not be held responsible for how it was built. It later said it planned to offer financial help to victims’ families.
‘It is encouraging that
several Danish companies today have decided
that they will sign the international agreement,’
Danish trade minister Pia Olsen Dyr said in a statement.
About 3.6 million
people work in Bangladesh’s garment industry,
making it the world’s second-largest apparel
exporter.
North American retailers including Walmart Stores Inc, Macy’s Inc, Sears Holdings Corp, JC Penney Co Inc and Gap Inc have declined to sign the fire and safety initiative.
PWT Group marketing director Brian Borsting
said the firm didn’t
sign the accord sooner due to certain issues that
needed clarifying, without elaborating.
-With New Age input
