[Walmart, Gap, Target and
many other American retailers have instead joined an alternative plan for which
they are working out details with help from former United States Senators
George J. Mitchell and Olympia J. Snowe. That group said it hoped to announce
details of its plan by mid-July. Critics say the United States plan will do far
less to improve factory safety in Bangladesh than the European-dominated plan.]
 |
| The Price of Fast Fashion |
A mostly European consortium of 70 retailers and apparel brands has agreed to inspect within
nine months all Bangladeshi garment factories that supply the companies.
In a plan to be
announced on Monday, the companies agreed that they would take responsibility
and immediate action wherever serious safety problems are found. They pledged
“to insure that sufficient funds are available to pay for renovations and other
safety improvements.”
The companies are
announcing details of their ambitious, legally binding safety plan after
negotiating with labor unions and nongovernment organizations for 45 days. A
plan was originally announced in mid-May, less than a month after 1,129 workers
died when a factory building collapsed in Bangladesh. The number of signatories
increased to 70 from 30 in mid-May, and includes H&M, Carrefour, Marks
& Spencer and PVH, the parent company of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger.
Very few American
companies joined the effort. Several said they disliked the plan because it was
legally binding, might subject them to lawsuits and included some ill-defined
potential obligations. Several European retailers and labor groups asserted
that these concerns were overblown and that the Americans were mainly worried
about the cost of the plan.
About 60 percent of
Bangladesh’s garment exports go to Europe. About 25 percent go to the United
States.
Walmart, Gap, Target and
many other American retailers have instead joined an alternative plan for which
they are working out details with help from former United States Senators
George J. Mitchell and Olympia J. Snowe. That group said it hoped to announce
details of its plan by mid-July. Critics say the United States plan will do far
less to improve factory safety in Bangladesh than the European-dominated plan.
Among the few American
companies that have joined the European-dominated plan are PVH, Abercrombie
& Fitch and Sean John. Loblaw, a Canadian retailer that produces the Joe
Fresh clothing line, has also joined.
“We’d love to have the
rest of the American companies join us,” said Andy York, ethical trading
manager for the N Brown Group, a British retailer.
Only a few Asian and
Australian retailers have joined the effort. They include Esprit, which has
financial headquarters in Hong Kong.
Under the plan, whenever
inspectors find a problem immediately threatening to cause death or serious
injury, the factory’s owner will be told to cease operations during
investigation and repairs. The group’s new executive director is to alert
Bangladeshi officials, all signatory companies and the factory’s workers about
the dangers.
The plan’s signatories
agreed that money to correct safety problems could come from joint investments,
direct payments, negotiated commercial terms, government or donor support or
any combination of these mechanisms.
“This is the only way to
bring about long-term, sustainable change to the garment industry in
Bangladesh,” Mr. York said.
Labor and consumer
groups have pressed Western retailers to join the plan, especially after the
factory collapse. A fire last November killed 112 workers in a Bangladesh
factory. The plan, which many labor unions and nongovernment organizations also
have signed, is called the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.
To allow for
inspections, the Western retailers agreed to send in the names and addresses of
all the Bangladeshi factories they use by July 15. In an unusual move, the list
of these factories, expected to total nearly 1,000, will be made public, as
will the inspection reports. Companies often resist disclosing the names of
their overseas suppliers for fear of competitors stealing them.
Inditex, the owner of
the Zara apparel chain, uses 350 factories in Bangladesh, H&M 260 and
C&A, a Dutch retailer, 230, said Jyrki Raina, general secretary of Industriall,
a union federation with 50 million members in 140 countries.
Under the plan,
international teams of fire and building safety inspectors, working with their
counterparts in Bangladesh, will inspect all the supplier factories within nine
months. They will look for serious concerns like inadequate fire exits and
fundamental structural flaws that could cause buildings to collapse. The
agreement also calls for developing “action plans” to correct serious safety
problems within nine months.
The accord’s members
said that when inspectors uncovered severe safety risks at a factory, “a viable
plan with renovations and repairs undertaken to address the hazards will be
produced and workers will be paid while the factory remains closed.”
The group said it would
seek to hire an executive director, a chief safety inspector and a training
coordinator to help educate Bangladeshi factory owners and workers about safety
and developing plans so workers can voice concerns about safety. “The direct
involvement of workers in the factories is key to the success of this program,”
Mr. Raina said.
In a statement prepared
for Monday’s announcement, the signatories said that they had elected a
six-person steering committee, including executives from PVH, the N Brown
Group, Inditex and two large union federations based in Geneva: Industriall and
Uni Global. The steering committee includes a representative of the Bangladesh
Council of Trade Unions. The nonvoting committee chairman will be Dan Rees, who
leads Better Works, a joint effort by the International Labor Organization and
International Finance Corporation, to improve conditions in factories in Haiti,
Cambodia and other poor countries.
“The brands and
retailers are proud of the accord, and they really want to make it a success,” Mr.
Raina said.
Several officials said
the International Finance Corporation, an arm of the World Bank, and the
British, Danish and Dutch governments have offered to help finance safety
renovations in factories in Bangladesh.
Scott Nova, executive
director of the Worker Rights Consortium, a factory monitoring group based in
Washington, said that prosperous Bangladeshi factory owners would be expected
to help finance safety improvements and that in such situations, Western
companies would not be expected to shoulder the burden alone.
The signatories say that
when serious hazards are found at a factory, they will try to engage
nonsignatory companies that use the factory in the efforts to make needed
safety upgrades.
