Rana plaza, five years on: safety of workers hangs in balance in Bangladesh
Deep cracks had
appeared in the eight-storey building outside Dhaka the day before. That
morning, workers who had been producing clothes sourced by major international
brands had begged not to be sent inside. Managers would not relent. More than
2,000 people filed in. Some time before 9am, floors began to vanish and workers
started falling.
Rana Plaza took less
than 90 seconds to collapse, killing
1,134 people. Unions called it a “mass industrial homicide”. Standing in
the rubble, Khatun promised to quit her job in a nearby garment factory. “Even
if I don’t have any other work, I won’t do it.” Revulsion over Rana
Plaza forced brands and retailers to act. The full list of companies who were
sourcing clothes from the building remains unclear, but had previously
included Primark, Matalan and
others.
About 250 companies signed two initiatives, the Accord
on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, and the less constraining Alliance
for Bangladesh Worker Safety. Both were designed to improve safety dramatically
in 2,300 factories supplying western brands. Both complete their terms this
year.
Few dispute that the
Accord and Alliance worked. “I think right now, of the developing countries
with a ready-made garment sector, Bangladesh is the
safest,” says Rob Wayss, executive director of the Accord. Progress is less
obvious for workers in at least 2,000 factories that do not supply major
western brands, and are inspected either by the Bangladesh government, or not
at all. Union activity across the sector remains stifled. And, analysts ask,
how sustainable are the improvements? What happens when the Accord and Alliance
end?
Khatun never did quit.
She has worked in garments since
the age of 11, one of successive generations of Bangladeshis brought out of
poverty, marginally, by an industry that now employs close to five
million people, earning the lowest wages of any garment workers in the
world. Yet some things have
changed in the factory where she works. “The owners are careful about safety
nowadays,” she says. “If we complain, they take action.”
Facing the threat of being
cut off by western buyers, thousands of factory owners have invested in fire
doors, sprinkler systems, electrical upgrades and stronger foundations,
eliminating more than 97,000 identified safety hazards in facilities covered by
the Accord alone… read more:
