Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)-The effort to improve inspection of Bangladesh's thousands of garment manufacturers is gathering pace a year after the Rana Plaza factory collapse killed 1,100 people and thrust worker safety onto the world's consciousness.
There has been disagreement over standards, confusion about who will pay to fix problems and resistance from some factory owners, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Nevertheless, inspectors hired by two groups led by international retailers and labour bodies have begun examining many of Bangladesh's factories.
A year ago, the Rana Plaza factory complex tumbled to the ground and the world watched in horror as rescuers searched for people trapped in the rubble.
The scale of the disaster led to widespread demands for safety improvements in Bangladesh, home to one of the world's largest garment industries.
On Thursday, thousands of workers, including survivors and victims' families, demonstrated near the collapse site with banners reading “stop killing workers”.
Labour groups have long complained that traditional factory audits by brands and trade groups failed to fix safety problems.
The international pacts that have pledged to improve inspections here are the Accord for Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, which is led by 150 mostly European retailers including Inditex SA of Spain and Sweden's Hennes & Mauritz AB; and the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, a group of 26 mostly North American companies led by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. WMT +0.40% and Gap Inc. GPS -0.36%.
The European group is inspecting more than 1,600 factories, while the North American alliance is covering roughly 700.
Overall, Bangladesh has about 5,000 garment factories, according to the national garment manufacturers' association, of which it says 3,500 are "active."
On a recent morning north of the capital Dhaka, executives at an eight-story factory watched as a dozen or so inspectors with the North American group visited.
The factory does work for Just Group, a member of the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, as well as several European retailers that are part of the Accord group.
The plant has been inspected previously by auditors for the individual brands.
But Muhammad Kamruzzaman, the factory's compliance manager, called this a special occasion. "These inspections are tougher," he said. "The standards are higher."
The inspectors broke into three teams looking at electrical, fire and structural safety.
Their visits are announced in advance, a practice that Mesbah Rabin, managing director for the Alliance, defends.
"We're not trying to catch people out here," he said.
"The idea is to get them to move to an acceptable safety standard."
Just Group, an Australian company that owns several brands, including Just Jeans and Jay Jays, didn't respond to requests for comment. The company says on its website that joining the Alliance reflects a "commitment to work with our international peers to invest in worker safety."
For the 1,200 or so factories not covered by the two inspection groups, the government has pledged to step in.
Bangladesh's program, the National Tripartite Action Plan, or NTAP, is supported by the International Labor Organisation and funded by the Dutch and British governments under a $24.2 million grant.
From the beginning, differing standards and approaches have complicated safety efforts. Factory owners were worried that the parallel initiatives would mean multiple audits and bureaucracy.
In November, the three groups—the Accord, the Alliance and the NTAP—overcame a major obstacle by agreeing to adopt unified standards, officials with the three programs said. Still, disagreements arise, according to interviews with top Alliance and Accord executives and engineers hired by the Bangladesh government.
For instance, Alliance officials say their inspectors have done more factory checks than the Accord, while Accord executives say the Alliance inspections are less thorough. The Alliance also says the Accord hasn't arranged for workers to be paid when a factory is closed for repairs, something the Accord denies.
Government engineers allege Accord and Alliance experts insist on fire-safety equipment, including automatic sprinklers, that could be prohibitively expensive for Bangladeshi factories. Executives for the private pacts say their standards are necessary.
Observers say the inspections represent a make-or-break moment for Bangladesh's garment industry, which accounts for 80% of the country's exports. Jyrki Raina of the IndustriALL global union, an umbrella group of world-wide unions, said Accord covers 2 million garment workers in Bangladesh and 75% of all garment exports from the country and has the potential to "bring an historic breakthrough in making the garment sector in Bangladesh safe and sustainable."
Ellen Tauscher, chairwoman of the Alliance, said the initiative was an unprecedented step by competitors who have agreed to "invest $50 million in an organisation that will completely change the opportunity for Bangladesh ready-made garment factory workers to go to work safely."
At the recent factory visit by Alliance inspectors the fire-safety team spotted problems even though one inspector described the plant as "fairly new and well-built."
"You have collapsible gates and rolling shutters which are dangerous in a fire," said Mahmud Akhter Shareef, an inspector.
"If the rollers melt in the heat, the gate will get stuck."
Shareef is a building-safety consultant for Sumerra, a Portland, Oregon, company hired by the Alliance to inspect its factories.
He also advised the factory executives to install fireproof doors that swing outward.
He said that, after the report is completed, the owner will have a few weeks to a few months to fix the bigger problems such as installing fire doors and sprinklers. He expects other issues to be remedied quickly.
Pointing out a floor mat preventing a swinging door from opening outward, he said: "You should fix that right now." Someone dragged the mat away.
The structural-safety team does tests with special hammers to examine the strength of columns. After a technician performs the examination, the inspector in charge said the building appears sound. "This isn't another Rana Plaza," he said.
After the inspection, the teams assembled in the boardroom with the factory owner. Workers' representatives also joined.
The inspectors summarised their initial findings. "Your factory is safe. After the issues we discovered are fixed, it will be an international standard factory," Shareef said.
Afterward, some workers discussed what they heard at the briefing. "Even if the factory is closed for repair, it's good," said Lipi Akter, a seamstress on the workers' committee. "It's better than dying in a collapsed building."
BBN/ANS/AD/26Apr14-4:25pm (BST)
