clothing industry of bangladesh sustainability depends on safety first

Cover PlusIssue: December , 2012

Clothing Industry of Bangladesh; sustainability depends on Safety FirstAbrar A Apu, MSc

www.abrarapu.com

Introduction :The clothing industry of Bangladesh is the lifeblood of Bangladesh. It is the prominent contributor of forex incomes and localjobs, especially for the illiterate people and villagers. More than 4 million are involved directly and about 15 million indirectly fortheir livelihood in this sector, mostly illiterate women. But at the same time, these women workers are the most important toolsfor quality sewing. The industry is the second largest clothing manufacturer globally.The success factors of becoming the secondlargest producer of clothing are: the lowest industrial wages, government's cash incentives, ruthless suppression of labor unionsand sweatshop. But in most cases concerned visibilities of the industry are: weak factory structure (management), poor safety inworkplace, and environmental issues.While the industry is steadily progressing to become leading global clothing supplier in themarket and is planning to initiate, its branding globally, at the same moment, the deadliest fire disaster in a clothing industry ofBangladesh took away life of 114 workers (government record) but the death toll claimed by labor unions is about 170. Theaccident not only remained the national issue in textile and clothing (T&C) sector of Bangladesh, but also became global issueaddressed by different nations and global textile and clothing players. The long cherished dream of exporting Bangladesh madeclothing to the USA without duty- may get another hurdle to overcome due to such a big disaster. But greater impact will be the,great reputation fall of the country; if we go hundred steps up to improve that over the years, such an incident is enough togobble everything.

History of Blazes in Bangladeshi Clothing Industry :Fire blazes in any industry are unwanted. If blaze happens, we consider that as an accident that always affected negatively. From1990 to 2010, in two decades a total of 188 clothing units in Dhaka and Chittagong region had faced fire accidents. Following is alist of remarkable fire disasters during the period of 1990 to 2012:

1990: 32 killed at Sareka Garments1996: 2 killed at Lusaka Garments1997: 22 died at Rahman & Rahman Apparels, 27 died at Tamanna Garments2000: 53 killed at Choudury Knitwear2001: 24 killed at Maico Sweater2002: 12 killed at Global Knitting

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2004: 9 killed at Misco Supermarket building2005: 23 killed at Shan Knitting, Godnail in January; 64 killed at Spectrum factory in April2006: 67 killed at KTS Chittagong, 6 died at Jamuna Spinning Mill, and 22 died at Phoenix Garments (building collapse)2010: 21 killed at Garib & Garib killed 21 in February and 29 killed in December at That's It Sportswear, a unit of the Hameemgroup2011: 2 killed after a boiler explosion at Eurotex2012: 114 are reported dead at Tazreen.

Present Situation :Fire safety is a compulsory item and basic requirement of social compliance. Present survey says, 60% of the 5,000 apparelfactories lack fire requirements. In the other way, 40% clothing factories maintain fire safety complaint. The survey revealed thateven with available fire extinguishers, no one knows how to operate it. It is; therefore, clear that for most of the fire proneclothing factories are exposed to fire hazards and casualties. From social compliance point of view, most of the clothing factoriesare not fully social compliant. In my article titled as 'Compliance in Textile & Clothing Sector in Bangladesh: difficulties inunderstanding and implementation' published in Oct'12 issue in same magazine where I tried to show why factories fail to ensurecompliance criteria in their businesses? There are several internal and external factors that have direct influence of failing toimplement the compliances in the industries. Internal factor of the industry can be included as non-existence of the compliancedepartment, which is usually considered by the owners as a department of wasting money without gaining any instant financialbenefit. The company may not have appropriate experts having sound knowledge on the issue and its implementation and dearthof moral and ethical sense among mid-level managers who directly control workers. External factors are - lack of concernorganizations that may conduct awareness and enforcement programs through relevant industrial organizations (say, BKMEA,BGMEA, BTMA, GOB etc.), lack of proper training institutes and government concerns, absence of research organization onrelevant issues, no common platform to share experiences and therefore no release of recommendations for betterimplementation of the concepts.

We see many factories are compliant on paper. The manufacturers have become technically clever to fulfill all requirements toget compliance certificate. Manufacturers satisfy the prospective buyers by showing certificate of compliance and get desiredorders. But in no time, they forget to maintain the standard said in its certificate and in evaluation reports. Because they believethat it cost them to maintain. Poor in morality, the manufacturers also believe that they only deserved to live, but not theworkers.

Clothing industry is labor intensive and they are poorly waged in Bangladesh. Inadequate wages for the clothing workers is notonly case in Bangladesh, but also in many countries. Maintaining social security or compliance is also principal hurdle in theclothing industry globally, due to working with highly flammable materials (cotton & synthetics) comparatively in denselycrowded place. Labor unrest, strikes and rampages by clothing workers in the recent past are some examples resulted due tosocial compliance related issues in clothing industry.

General Requirements for Export-oriented Clothing Industry :In Bangladesh, to run a clothing industry, the respective authority has to fulfill a long checklist to ensure social security, e.g., firesafety, such asl Permission from the RAJUK (Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha) Authority or Local Government Engineering Division for erectingbuilding for clothing industry purpose and have to maintain industrial building codesl Fire certificate (yearly renewal needed) from Fire Service and Civil Defense Authority by ensuring fire safety.l Certificate from Department of Environment (DoE) by ensuring environmental compliance.l Permission from Boiler Licensing Authority through ensuring of safe operation and maintenance of boilers.l Insurance of the production facility and workers (25 workers per factory only).l Becoming a member of the business association concerned e.g. BGMEA, BKMEA.International organizations in cooperation with buyers and consumers have formulated several international standards. Buyersask for implementation of one or more sets of the following standards before placing any orders in the industry. These standardsincluded fire safety requirements.

-SA 8000 standard, which ensures better labor-practices in production facilities. Independent accredited body audits, verifies andcertifies the production facility on yearly basis.

-WRAP that ensure ethical, humane, and lawful conditions and practices in manufacturing facilities. In this case too, anIndependent accredited body audits, verifies and certifies yearly basis.

Similarly, Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), Ethical Trade Initiative (ETI), Clean Cloth Campaign (CCC), Fairtrade(IMO Fair for Life), Fair Wear Foundation (FWF), Social Accountability (For Life), Supplier Ethical Date Exchange (Sedex) etc. areinternationally accepted standards to improve the working condition in clothing sector.

So, it is clear that there are so many regulations which still cannot stop accidents and casualties in the factories. Enforcementand continuous compliance remains the key.

Creating Safe Guard :


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All social compliance standards are based on primary requirements on fire safety. But socially compliant clothing industries arefacing fire accidents and killing humans as death traps. Fire in recently SA-8000 certified textile Plant in Pakistan kills 300workers (11th Sept'12). It is clear that only proper fire fighting tools and trained fire fighters is not enough to fight fire accidents,because most clothing industries are becoming suffocation chambers. The buildings used for clothing assembly stations are, inmost cases, not following building codes and these buildings are lacking of emergency exit routes, lack of proper warning andsignal arrangement, insufficient fire-fighting equipment, faulty gas and electric lines, no use of fire retardant materials on thewalls and the roof and use of low quality electrical fittings, etc.

It is some extent true that ensuring safety tools help to fight against the accidental fire occurrence if these tools are properlymaintained and utilized on the right time and on the right place in the right way. But when the intensity of the fire is beyond thecontrol, then only emergency exists if get opened on time can save life of working people. It is found that the emergency exitsare locked during emergency need to evacuate workers. The purpose of the emergency exists is not served. Consequentlydeadly occurrence takes place.

A well structured and well written fire safety policy both in Bangla and symbolic pictures are must. The factory has to ensure theimplementation policy. Regular training and rehearsal of evacuation activities create awareness what to do. As instructed by thegovernment in its Gazette 29/5/2008, safety should be ensure in the working place. As per Bangladesh Gazette it is compulsoryrequirement for a factory unit (i.e., clothing manufacturing factory) to maintain exit access, exit, and an exit discharge. Nofactory can have less than 1.1 meter wide emergency exit if it has less than 50 workers; no factory can be exempted from thebasic requirement of three exits if it has more than a thousand workers; no factory can escape the rule of law, which clearlystates that there has to be at least one fire extinguisher per every 5,500 square feet area with 25% of the workers having fulloperational knowledge of fire fighting, rescue and coordination. The stairs have to be at least 55 inches wide and at least 78inches in height. There have to be gas and powder-type extinguishers on the floor along with 30 refill masks, blankets, firehoses, fire beaters, lock cutters, stretchers, ropes, etc.

Recommendations :It is the right time to find out innovative ideas, which will play vital roles in controlling and maintaining compliance in labor-intensive industry. The concerned authority may take initiative in grading clothing manufacturing units (say A-grade bestperformer and F-grade worst performer) as per performance and standard. Respective authority can formulate standard bytaking help from well-experienced standard setting bodies, experts, researchers and academics. Online (through world wide web,www) information of each industry may help any user (e.g., buyers) to know performance of each individual clothing industry.IMO Institute for Market Ecology- a Swiss based one of the leading certifying bodies globally, has been bearing such informationand data of the certified units in social compliance (for Life) and fair trade (Fair for Life) standards. The information is displayedonline and one can know every aspect of compliance performance of listed manufacturing units. Following example from (source:http://fairforlife.org) may provide full pictures of fair information of operator/manufacturing unit.


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Different mode of paying cash incentives against export can play role to compel clothing industry to be fully compliant. Thegovernment may formulate an audit committee through PPP (public private partnership) who will scrutinize all necessarydocuments that ensure social compliance including fire safety. After proper verification and fulfillment of documents by theindustry, the government may disburse incentives. This process certainly keeps manufacturers under pressure to maintain allnecessary criteria as well as documentation.

The government should make life insurance of all workers in production facility mandatory for the respective manufacturers. Asper current regulation, one factory has to do very nominal insurance only 25 workers even though she has more than 1000workers. Right to form labor union in clothing industry can help the workers to fight for their secured workplace. Whenconventional trading fails to ensure basic rights of working labors, fair trade concept implementation (e.g., IMO Fair for Life, FLOFair trade) ensures basic rights of workers.

Conclusion :


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Our clothing industry achieved the second largest clothing producer position in the world, not due to high levels of productivity ora strong national infrastructure or an environment friendly and resources efficient production, but it achieved it by being therock-bottom cheapest place. Negligence of workplace safety contributes to become rock-bottom cheapest place. In last twodecades approximately 1000 died through blazes in clothing industry. Critics address clothing industries as 'deathtrap' now. Theexperts, manufacturers, well wishers as well as stockholders should take it as challenge to change views of those critics throughtransforming so call deathtraps into secured workplace. Fragmented activities by government, NGO (standard setting bodies,certifying bodies, GIZ, UNIDO) trade bodies (BGMEA, BKMEA) already showed all their limitations in ensuring demanded basicsecurity of workers in industry, but their collaborative effort through a common platform must ensure the security-the workersdeserved. It is the right time to formulate a comprehensive strategy for workers' security.


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clothing industry of bangladesh sustainability depends on safety first

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