Walmart, Gap and other major US retailers plan to meet Tuesday in Chicago to start implementing a Bangladesh factory-safety plan announced last month amid criticism it lacks teeth to enforce company promises, reports Wall Street Journal.
The group, made up of 20 companies known as the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, will also announce its board of directors, reveal new signatories like Costco Wholesale Corp and finalise common fire- and building-safety standards it pledged to put in place by September 10.
The group said it has already begun to disburse $45 million in funds by members but plans to hire an executive director and management firm to oversee funds and programmes.
The group is the US industry’s response to pressure to improve working conditions in facilities in Bangladesh and prevent disasters like the deadly garment factory collapse in April.
The retailers, which include Macy’s Inc and Target Corp, struck a five-year deal last month to train workers and inspect factories. It will require factory owners in Bangladesh to pay for their own safety renovations but has committed to providing $100 million in low-cost loans toward the effort. Participation in the lending programme is voluntary and varies by retailer.
The agreement continues to attract scrutiny from labour activists and worker groups who say the safety plan falls short of a separate,
legally binding agreement that commits Hennes & Mauritz AB, Tommy Hilfiger parent PVH Corp and 70 other, mostly European companies to directly pay for the costs of repairing and renovating some 5,000 Bangladesh garment factories.
Critics also complain of the absence of labour organisations from the North American alliance’s board of directors and say that nothing will change as long as the retailers continue to control the inspection process by choosing and paying the auditors, as well as electing a board that is supposed to conduct oversight and ensure the companies follow through with their safety plan.
‘They are essentially asking the companies and factory owners to regulate themselves,’ said Scott Nova, executive director at the Worker Rights Consortium, who helped craft the European-led accord. ‘They want people to see this as an alternative plan, but it’s no different than what companies have been doing without success for decades.’
The North American retail alliance’s eight-member board includes four company representatives from Target, Walmart, Gap and VF Corp as well as former US ambassador to Bangladesh Jim Moriarty and fire-safety consultant Randy Tucker, both of whom were employed by the companies on previous safety programmes.
Other board members include Muhammad Rumee Ali, executive director of BRAC Bank, and Mohammad Atiqul Islam, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters’ Association, the influential group of Bangladesh factory owners that has risen to power over the past decade as the South Asian country rose to become one of the world’s largest exporters of clothing.
Former US Rep Ellen O’Kane Tauscher, a California Democrat who served in the State Department before taking a job at a Washington law firm, will serve as chairman. She said her job was to serve as an independent monitor and ensure the companies followed through with their safety plans.
‘I have no conflict, I’ve never worked with these companies before and came on board to give credibility and be the person who is going to ensure accountability,’ she said. ‘We expect scrutiny, but it is also important to give us time to put the plans into action.’
-With New Age input
