Bangladesh Alliance tracks progress in third annual report

On Thursday, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety (Alliance) released its third annual report, detailing progress on critical safety repairs and the establishment of worker safety committees.

“By July 2018, all Alliance factories will have either completed their high-priority repairs or have been suspended from the Alliance’s list of suppliers. Progress toward this goal has been significant and achieving closure on the remaining issues most critical to life safety remains our primary focus,” stated the Alliance's independent chair Ellen Tauscher.

To date, 55 percent of high-priortiy repairs have been completed, i.e. repairs that are most important for life safety, yet often the most costly and time-consuming for the factories like importing and installing fire doors (which are not produced in Bangladesh), reinforcing structural beams and columns and installing sprinkler systems.

Worker safety committees, started in April of this year, have now either been established or are in formation in 54 factories. The committees consist of workers who have been trained and given the authority to monitor on-site occupational safety and health issues. The Alliance aims for establishing these committees in a majority of Alliance factories by July 2018.

Worker safety committees are a priority

“Achieving safety in factories is about more than completing repairs. It must be accompanied by comprehensive efforts to inform, engage and empower the women and men who earn their living in garment factories. By approaching remediation and empowerment hand in hand, we are working to set the gold standard for garment factories throughout Bangladesh”, explained Alliance country director James Moriarty.

The report also highlighted that 63 percent of all required repairs have been completed - including the aforementioned 55 percent of high-priority repairs - and that 40 factories have achieved substantial completion of their corrective action plans. However, 97 factories had to be suspended from the list of Alliance-compliant factories due to failure to make sufficient remediation progress.

In terms of training, more than 1.2 million workers have been trained in basic fire safety, with nearly 800,000 receiving the interactive refresher course and almost 23,000 security persons undergoing fire safety leadership training. The Alliance helpline continues to be well-received with an average of 4,200 calls per month and almost 90,000 calls overall since its launch in June 2014. A second helpline had been established in March 2015 by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Norwegian government, which is also well-received.

Initially, the Alliance's goal had been to complete all remediation and final inspections of its 600 supplier factories by July 2017 but remediation verification visits had proceeded slower than expected due to a variety of reasons so that the deadline was revised to 2018 at the time of the second annual report.

The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety was founded by a group of North American apparel companies, retailers and brands in 2013 that joined to develop and launch the Bangladesh Worker Safety Initiative, a binding, five-year undertaking that is transparent, results-oriented, measurable and verifiable with the intent of improving safety in Bangladesh's ready-made garment factories.

Photo: Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety