WHEN the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) comes up with an outlandish statement pointing the finger at international politics rather than the collective failure of industry and monitoring bodies to conform to safety and labour standards, we are naturally taken aback. More than a thousand workers have died over a decade from poor safety standards, and the failure of the garments sector and the government to wake up to repeated warnings from western development partners to avoid attracting suspension of preferential treatment has now recoiled on us.

So, when BGMEA tries to gloss over its foot dragging measures in improving the risky conditions workers are forced to work in the large number of factories, the argument doesn't cut ice. Suspension of Generalised System of Preferences was to a large extent linked to workers' safety at the workplace and the right to congregate under a collective bargaining authority, i.e. the right to form unions. The pace with which reform has been initiated since the Rana Plaza building collapse has left little doubt about the sincerity of industry to bring about serious changes to prevent another Rana or Tazreen-type disaster. While we have been fortunate to have not faced a similar cap on privileges from the Europeans and the Japanese markets, nonetheless governments across Europe and Japan want to see greater compliance on these issues. At the end of the day, we must get over our national pastime of accusing external factors for problems of our own creation.