Battling for a Safer Bangladesh
After the Spectrum sweater factory collapsed in 2005, killing 64 workers, hardly anything changed to improve factory safety in Bangladesh.
Then the Rana Plaza factory near Dhaka collapsed on April 24 last year, killing 1,129 workers in what was the worst disaster in garment industry history. And that happened just a few months after the Tazreen Fashions fire, which killed 112 Bangladeshi workers.
Reacting to public outrage, Western retailers and apparel brands began a major push to improve safety at the Bangladeshi factories they do business with. It involves a sprint to inspect hundreds of plants each month and a commitment to help correct any safety problems found — all with an eye to preventing another catastrophic collapse or fire.
But instead of joining forces, the Western brands have divided into two sometimes feuding camps — a result, some say, that detracts from the overall effort, which has otherwise won praise.
One group — the Bangladesh Accord for Fire and Building Safety — has more than 150 members, including many European brands like H&M, Carrefour and Mango, as well as 14 American companies. The other group — the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety — includes 26 companies, all of them American or Canadian, among them Walmart, Gap, Target and Kohl’s.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/22/business/international/battling-for-a-safer-bangladesh.html?hp
