Alliance grants additional funds

Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, aka Alliance, has granted an additional $20 million as low-cost funds to help factory owners remediate their units.

Alliance has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) - a US based non-profit organisation known to be a global leader in fire safety.

The NFPA will train, educate and guide Alliance members and their factory staff and workers in matters of fire safety, press releases posted on the Alliance website on Sept 18 have said.

According to a Sept 17 press release, an event on sharing independent review findings of Alliance's one-year work was held by the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington DC.

Alliance chair Ellen Taucher said, "From the very beginning, Alliance member companies committed nearly $50 million to a worker safety fund and made an additional $100 million available in affordable access to capital to help factories implement safety upgrades.

In recent weeks, we’ve approved another fund that will help leverage—and guarantee—up to an additional $20 million in support for factory owners through low-cost financing."

At the event, BPC co-founder former senator George Mitchell and senior fellow and senator Olympia Snowe praised Alliance for the progress it made in one year in improving working conditions in the Bangladesh garment factories.

They also stressed the acceptance of each other’s inspection reports, as differences between the European clothing retailers' group, Accord, and Alliance over accepting an individual inspection report done by an Alliance member had surfaced last month.

In a separate statement, George Mitchell said factory owners should not be subjected to unnecessary burden and conflicting compliance requirements due to duplication of work by Accord and Alliance.

Another Alliance press release

says it signed an MoU with NFPA to strengthen fire safety in Bangladesh garment factories.To achieve that goal, the partnership has adopted following key tools:

• Increasing awareness of NFPA codes, standards and resources in garments industry

• Intensification of training and education through effective fire and electrical system safety programmes for workers and management staffs

• Distribution of vital information to help workers identify and prevent workplace risks at Alliance factories.

On the 4-year partnership, Ellen Taucher said, "Our partnership with NFPA will ensure our member factories will be guided by best practices used around the world and the most up to date standards for building and fire safety."