10 years after Rana Plaza disaster: Efforts to make RMG factories safety compliant slog on
Even 10 years after the Rana Plaza collapse, export oriented ready-made garment factories' full compliance with international safety standards is far from being achieved.
The factory remediations that had started following the collapse are still slogging on.
Until 2020, there was a legally binding contract called the Accord on RMG fire and building safety. Accord forced as many as 200 brands to only source from factories that are under the process of implementing internationally supervised corrective safety measures.
Now, there is no such legal bar for brands, nor is there any authority that can force brands to stop buying from factories that are not making any headway to become safe.
To get orders from the biggest brands, all that factories need to do is show that they are in a process of self-improvement, regardless of how long it takes them to actually become fully compliant.
With the legal bindings gone, around 200 more factories got on board to become safety compliant over the last year.
These factories are now under national scrutiny. But now there are more non-complaint factories supplying clothes to big brands.
For every step taken, the finishing line moves further away and the job to make RMG factories safer gets even bigger.Most of the factories that are implementing the safety measures had their first inspections as early as 2014.
The RMG factories in the process of remediation are now either under the Department of Inspection of Factories and Establishments (DIFE)-led "National Initiative" (NI), or the private RMG Sustainability Council (RSC), which was formed in 2020 after the Accord ended following an apex court verdict.
In a paper released recently, the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) found that the progress of implanting safety measures in the factories under DIFE was only 54 percent on average.
The 54 percent progress does not necessarily mean the most serious safety issues have been addressed. In fact, the data shows that the progress of remediation remained the least in issues related to fire, said the paper titled "Emerging Concerns of Occupational Safety and Health of the RMG Industry: Role of Public and Private Monitoring Agencies".
The DIFE is overseeing the progress of the implementation of safety measures in 659 factories, said the CPD. These factories were first inspected in 2015.
According to the DIFE's inspection report, 361 of the factories made less than 50 percent progress.
The CPD said the procrastination stems from a "lack of self-interest of the NI factories' owners as they were not adequately pressurised by the government, business associations, and their buyers who are mostly from non-European and non-North-American countries".
In addition, many factories are in rented buildings which makes it difficult to invest in certain safety measures. These businesses are often found to be financially weak with limited access to credit.
Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) in a press release yesterday said that after the DIFE took over, inspections halved in the last fiscal year and the quality of the inspections remained questionable due to corruption. "Bribing of compliance auditors to overlook non-compliance issues and ignoring important concerns worsen the situation."
When the Accord ended, over 1,700 factories were handed over to the RSC. Of the factories, about 1,000 were classified as running behind schedule for becoming fully safe.
The CPD pointed out that 500 factories under the RSC have become fully compliant. In January 2021 when Accord ended, 326 factories were compliant.
The issues in the initial findings had a correction progress rate of 91.32 percent in January 2023. "However, item-wise progress shows that the progress rate is lower for a few common fire-related items (such as fire detection and alarm system, installation of fire suppression system)," said the CPD.
The progress rate of fire detection and suppression installation is 53 and 63.5 percent respectively, found the CPD.
Easy steps like the removal of collapsible gates saw the highest implementation.
As per the RSC website, it has at least 1,884 factories to watch. It is yet to provide 211 factories with their corrective action plans.
On the addition of more factories to the RSC, Golam Moazzem, research director of the CPD and the author of the research, said, "This is a positive signal. More factories now want to be on board, and be under scrutiny. The question is whether the RSC is increasing its capacity."
The CPD pointed out that because the RSC does not shut down non-compliant factories, the functionality of the RSC remains below par on many accounts.
The RSC on its website classified 1,061 factories as "behind schedule".
Chief Safety Officer George Faller of the RSC said, "There is good progress on most fire-related items, but automatic detection and alarms and fire suppression systems are more complex issues and therefore the RSC is not only monitoring the design and installation of these systems, but also carrying out commissioning and testing for them, which takes more time and effort than for other items for final approval.
"The RSC is continuously delisting some factories and onboarding new ones, so the overall percentage progress does not reflect progress on factories that have been under the programme for a long time."
The TIB said exploitative practices of some brands and buyers motivated by short-term profitability at the expense of business integrity, together with the continued failure of authorities to ensure accountability and workers' rights-sensitive governance, pose the most formidable challenges for sustainability in the industry.
In 2018 and 2019, the number of deaths in RMG factories were 10 and 2 respectively. In 2020 when Accord ended, that figure was one. In 2021, it rose to 13, says the CPD.
The DIFE inspector general did not respond to calls and texts from The Daily Star.
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