Setbacks still remain in factory safety: Alliance

The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, a platform of 26 retailers from North America, has identified 45 problems in each of the 587 factories it has inspected so far.
Fire and safety standards remain the top problem of the factories inspected, Alliance said.
Each factory owner needs to spend around $250,000 to remedy the faulty factories and 50 percent of the factories have already been remedied, Mesbah Rabin, managing director of Alliance, said at a media briefing in Dhaka.  
“Together, Alliance and our partners are steadily achieving progress that will have a lasting, positive impact on factory workers' safety," he said releasing new details on progress in factory safety standards in the last one year.
In the coming year, Alliance will focus on efforts to bring all factories under compliance with strict safety standards, he said.
While Alliance has made notable progress, several challenges remain as the group looks to continue progress in the next four years, he said. Uneven government capacity, limited presence and acceptance of trade union and a lack of modern safety equipment must all be navigated to achieve sustainable change, he said.
“Substantial challenges must be overcome in order to achieve our goals in the Bangladesh garment industry," said Rabin.
"As the hard work of remediation now begins, it is incumbent upon all stakeholders to do their part to ensure a safer industry for everyone."
Alliance has trained 1.1 million workers and managers on basic fire safety. This is a significant milestone, especially reflecting upon recent factory tragedies, which highlighted a lack of fire safety knowledge among factory owners, said Ina Spaulding, chief executive of Alliance.
Alliance surveyed 3,200 workers before developing a training programme in 2013.
The survey revealed that 2 percent of workers could correctly identify fire hazards and 39 percent knew what to do in case of fire.
“We have recently conducted another follow-up survey among trained workers. The result showed a dramatic increase in fire safety knowledge,” Spaulding said.
Workers who correctly identified the common sources of fire hazards were increased from 2 percent to 51 percent and those who could correctly identify what to do in case of fire increased from 39 percent to 97.8 percent, according to the follow-up survey.    
“These results are significant but training alone is not enough. If a worker can identify safety concerns but does not feel empowered to report them, factory safely will not be improved,” he said.
Alliance has launched a worker helpline, Amader Kotha, so that workers can anonymously report concerns without the fear of retaliation, Spaulding said.  
The work order from Alliance members to Bangladesh has increased in the first quarter of this year, said Rabin.
Alliance members have agreed to give 20 million bank guarantees for small factories to get low cost loans through International Finance Corporation, he said.   
“We will launch a social and environmental excellence award on building, fire, electrical safety to recognise factory owners.”
Alliance will also organise an expo on fire equipment on December 8.