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A YEAR AFTER RANA PLAZA COLLAPSE

Consumers demand more accountability

TANYA TALAGA, Toronto Star
IT took the worst garment factory accident in modern history' to teach consumers the real price of an $8 T-shirt.
A year after 1,134 people were killed and even more injured in the Rana Plaza collapse, mindsets are changing one stitch at a time—from consumers demanding more at the till to greater accountability by clothing brands to the workers themselves.
When the eight-storey building collapsed last April 24, images were beamed across the world of lifeless and limbless workers being pulled from rubble strewn with brightly coloured pieces of clothing made for labels such as Joe Fresh, Mango, Benetton and The Children's Place.
For a moment, it seemed the world took notice after decades of accepting Bangladesh as fast fashion's dirty little secret. The garment business is a $22-billion-a-year industry' for the South Asian country. Before Rana Plaza, a blind eye was turned to the appalling working conditions that garment workers, mostly women but also children, endured daily. Most worked for long hours, no overtime pay and in unsafe buildings for less than $1 a day.
Since then, there has been a concentrated push for change by consumers demanding more accountability' and by many clothing brands.
Some 166 companies from 20 countries have signed the Accord on Fire and Building Safety' in Bangladesh.
The legally binding agreement commits retailers to use only those manufacturers who operate safe factories. If a factory fails inspection, retailers must help fund construction upgrades.
Officials with the accord, signed by many major retail owners such as Loblaw and the United Kingdom's Primark, are trying to convince others operating in Bangladesh to sign on.
Last month, New Democratic Party MP Matthew Kellway introduced a motion in the House of Commons calling on the federal government to endorse the accord "as a critical mechanism for the protection of the health and safety of Bangladesh's garment workers." The motion also called on all Canadian companies manufacturing garments in Bangladesh to become signatories.
The Ontario government requires all its garment suppliers to provide details about the factories to ensure that only' manufacturers who follow labour and workplace safety laws are used.
That change comes after the province admitted it had purchased $66 million worth of garments for its employees without knowing where they were made.
Clothing vendors must now provide the names and addresses of all their production facilities. That information will be made public at the website Ontario, ca/supplychain.
HBC, owner of Hudson Bay stores and one of Canada's largest retailers, has also pledged to disclose the factories making its garments. Factory inspections—many in buildings that have never been properly' inspected—are a key principal of the accord. Results of every single inspection will eventually be published on the accord's website. There are currently' 10 factory inspection reports online.
Progress is being made on the inspection of accord factories. About 45 a week are visited and so far 280 have been inspected for fire and electrical problems while 240 factories have been examined for structural issues, said Bob Jeffcott, of Toronto-based Maquila Solidarity Network, a labour and women's rights group.
"But there has been some resistance by' manufacturers, some say standards are too high," he said, adding others are hesitant to shut their factories to make buildings safer.
Unfortunately, securing compensation for the families of those who died or were injured in Rana has not been easy. Few companies are contributing.
A $40-million Rana Plaza Donors Trust
Fund was established for the 3,000 workers and their families whose lives were devastated.
But only one-third of that amount has been collected, said Jeffcott. "These are inadequate amounts, only one-third of the total necessary to provide lost income and cover medical expenses for all of the victims, for the families of those who died and the others who were injured."
Last month, the UK retailing giant Primark announced it will pay $9 million to nearly 580 workers at New Wave Bottoms, its supplier at Rana Plaza. It also pledged $1 million to the trust fund.
Ganada's Loblaw Gompanies Ltd, owner of the Joe Fresh brand, has contributed $2 million to the trust fund with another $1 million coming, according to Jeffcott.
Loblaw also provided some emergency relief in short-term compensation and has donated to programs run by Save the Children and the Centre for Rehabilitation of the Paralysed, a Bangladesh charity.
"But we are focused on the long-term. We are saying they should be providing an additional $5 million, making it an $8 million contribution," Jeffcott said, adding that figure is based on Loblaw's Rana Plaza involvement at the time of the collapse.
Walmart and The Children's Place have
also donated indirectly—Walmart has given $1 million and Children's Place about $450,000—through a nongovernmental organisation.
Jeffcott said those figures are "incredibly low" for companies of their size and reach. Then there are some companies, such as Italy’s Benetton, that have given nothing, he added.
Besides the accord, another group of brands, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, has organised inspections and vowed to improve worker safety. Working with the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, 675 inspections have been carried out to date, reports Harvard University's James Gifford writing in The Guardian.
Wages are another area of improvement for garment workers in Bangladesh. Last December, monthly wages were increased 79 per cent to $68. But some Bangladesh manufacturers say they are being forced to shoulder the wage hike alone as some brands refuse to help.
Bangladesh garment workers still face many challenges, chief among them being able to organise into labour unions, said Jeffcott. "Sometimes, violence happens on them when they try to. That hasn't changed significantly enough."