Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, a group of North American retailers, on Thursday said that it would pay 50 per cent of wages to workers for two months if production at any of the garment factories is suspended because of its safety inspection.
The Alliance chair Ellen Tauscher made the announcement at a press conference in a city hotel.
If production of any factory is suspended for repair works following the inspection of Alliance experts, the group will stay with the factory and will pay 50 per cent of the wages to the workers for two months while the rest will be paid by the factory owner, she said.
Asked who would take the responsibility if the factory safety works were not completed in two months, Ellen replied, ‘We are inspecting only 700 factories out of around 5,000. I believe the workers have a lot of job opportunities in the industry which is growing at a rate of 14 per cent.’
Replying to another question, she said that Alliance would not bargain with the buyers on garment prices in behalf of Bangladeshi factories.
‘Our job is to ensure safety and we are working on that. The market will determine the price,’ she said.
When asked about one of the Alliance signatories faulty factory was identified in last September which is yet to complete the works for safety measures, Ellen replied, ‘Because of so many reasons the safety-related works are getting delayed. One example is fire suppression equipments have to be imported with very high tariff,’ she said.
More than 4,00,000 factory managers and workers have been trained with the aim of training more than one million workers by July, she said.
Alliance adviser Wajidul Islam said some garment factories were closed because of conspiracy.
‘As long as the Alliance is working for workers betterment we will support them. If any of safety measure moves affect the workers badly, we will protest it,’ he said.
BGMEA president Atiqul Islam said the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, a group of European buyers, should work in the same line as Alliance.
‘If the two groups work with different approaches for the same industry and workers, it will confuse the workers,’ he said.
Accord took no responsibility in giving wages to more than 13,000 workers of around 10 garment factories production at which were suspended in the last few weeks as per the recommendations of the retailers’ group.
Muhammad A (Rumee) Ali, BRAC enterprises managing director, Alliance managing director M Rabin, Bangladesh Sramik League president Sukkur Mahmud and labour leader Sirajul Islam spoke, among others, on the occasion.
-With New Age input
