Alliance to work closely with labour groups

The Alliance for Bangladesh Workers' Safety, an initiative of North American retailers and brands, has pledged to work more closely with Bangladesh labour groups.

Alliance's local Managing Director Rabin Mesbah told bdnews24.com this emerged from discussions at the body’s annual board meeting on Jul 21 in the US.

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The meeting also discussed projects implemented and ongoing and the roadmap for the next two years.

Mesbah told bdnews24.com: "It was decided that the Alliance would work more closely with workers' organisations. From the very beginning Alliance has been working with labour unions. Bangladesh government has recently amended the labour act and allowed workers to form trade union in Export Processing Zones (EPZ).

“This will create more RMG workers' trade unions. Alliance has made up its mind to work with the labour leaders and to train them up."

 Rabin said Alliance will organise for the second time 'The Building and Fire Safety Expo, 2014' on Dec 7-9 to display fire safety equipments. Factory owners, brands, retailers, NGO and government officials will participate.

When bdnews24.com wanted to know about the Alliance’s previous programmes, its local MD said the details were contained in their annual report, published on Jul 22.

The report says the body developed Alliance Basic Fire Safety Training manual and trained 1.1 million workers.

The report also said 97.8 percent of the trained workers now knew what to do in the event of a fire. The figure was based on a survey of 683 randomly selected workers from five factories.

The report also says Alliance had inspected 587 factories, completed the remediation work in 50 percent of the factories, recommended the closure of 10 factories because of safety concerns, doubled the compensation benefits for workers laid-off because of remediation, formed a 5-million-dollar worker support fund, and compensated 1,000 workers.

Besides, it also mentions the starting of a helpline - 'Amader Kotha' - for garment workers, who want to report about safety concerns anonymously.

"Initially, we started it as a pilot project in five factories. We hope to extend it to 150 factories by December this year. The government also has a plan to introduce similar helpline. If it succeeds, we will merge the two help lines."

The report also mentions an Alliance fund of $100 million for providing low-cost capital to factory owners finding it difficult to finance their factory remediation work. Robin Mesbah said: "The fund was created for factory owners who find it difficult to finance the remediation work. International Finance Corporation (IFC) will look after the operation of this low-cost fund."