Accord, Alliance, National Committee to hold meeting Nov 6-8
Readymade garment factory inspection by three parties — the European Accord, North American Alliance and National Tripartite Committee — could not be started yet as the parties could not agree on a common checklist on fire and building safety six months after the Rana Plaza collapse.
The three parties, however, are going to hold a meeting in Dhaka in November 6-8 to finalise a common checklist for fire and building safety inspection.
Sources involved with the process expressed their doubt over the harmonisation of common standard in the meeting as the EU Accord has some differences relating to the fire safety issues and it had yet to place its checklist to the government.
Earlier, the stakeholders including the government, factory owners, Accord, Alliance and the ILO in a meeting held on September 7 agreed on setting common fire, electrical and building safety assessment standards.
After the worst industrial incident in Rana Plaza n April 24, which killed more than 1,100 people, mostly garment workers, the retailers and apparel brands from EU and North America separately formed the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh and the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety Initiative.
Both the two consortiums announced their action plan include factory inspections, training and worker empowerment and said that they would inspect factories that manufacture products for them.
The government had made decision to inspect rest of the factories under the national tripartite plan of action in assistance with the ILO and asked all the parties to work under a common standard.
Labour ministry officials said that the North American Alliance on October 15 placed its proposals including 45 conditions for common standard and the experts of the National Tripartite Committee already finalised the draft of fire and building safety manual as per the 15 existing laws in Bangladesh and the proposal of the Alliance.
According to the sources, the Alliance agreed on the draft of fire and building safety manual but the EU Accord neither agreed nor disclosed its standard to the government.
‘I hope all the parties would agree the checklist and no new issues will be raised,’ labour secretary Mikail Shipar told New Age on Thursday.
He expects that the government inspection will start from November 1 as per the newly formulated fire and building safety manual.
A source, quoting ILO country director Srinivas Reddy, said that the ILO would facilitate the meeting of Alliance, Accord and National Tripartite Committee to agree on harmonised standards.
To ensure a well coordination between three parties and to avoid duplication of work the ILO is coordinating the process, Reddy said.
Recently, the Accord published a list of about 1,600 factories while the Alliance is scheduled to do the same of about 620 apparel units. The government with the ILO will inspect the rest of the factories by 30 expert teams of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.
-With New Age input
