Bangladesh: 32 Walmart factories fail safety tests

US retail giant Walmart, member of an alternative alliance of North

American retailers and not the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh that most European brands and retailers opted for, has received a rude awakening after the first inspections by independent auditor Bureau Veritas. Thirty-two of its 200 audited factories failed safety inspections, lacking basic standards of structural, fire or electrical safety.

After the collapse of the Rana Plaza building that housed five garment factories in Savar on the outskirts of Dhaka in April of this year, killing more than 1,100 workers, Walmart decided in May to go ahead with audits for the around 200 factories that it uses in Bangladesh.

Walmart said that improvements had been made for those factories that failed the audits. However, the two factories that had to be closed remain closed: one because it was too unsafe and the other because of an illegal eighth floor that houses the staff canteen.

According to Jay Jorgensen, Walmart’s global compliance officer, the retailer published a list of the audited factories, of which 65 percent are also used by other internal brands and retailers, to help them in their sourcing endeavors in Bangladesh.

Though it is commendable that Walmart has initiated a first step in improving conditions in Bangladesh and published its results, workers' rights campaigners such as the Workers Rights Consortium, IndustriAll and others have slammed the reports as “too vague to be helpful”. Walmart has cited “civil unrest and difficulties in sourcing sufficient new materials” as reasons for not providing any details about the problems at each factory, which seem plausible enough for not carrying out improvements quickly but not for providing simple information.

"Walmart's reports are superficial at best. They contain no detailed information whatsoever about the results of the inspections or the remediation that has supposedly been carried out and there is no mention of the need to inform workers about risks that have been identified in their workplace,” confirmed Theresa Haas of the Workers Rights Consortium.

The discussion comes in the wake of an appeal by the ILO, a UN body, for safer working conditions and fairer wages in Bangladesh. A recently published ILO report states that "unless a comprehensive set of labour market and social policies are introduced, Bangladesh will be unable to maintain its economic momentum and improve living standards in a sustainable way.” Just last week, supported by the prime minister, Bangladesh's wage board had achieved an increase of the minimum salary for garment workers by 77 percent from 3,000 takas (38 US dollars) to 5,300 takas (68 US dollars). It still remains one of the lowest minimum wages for garment workers worldwide.