3 years of deadliest Rana Plaza Collapse, Safe workplace is for saving our life or Brands?

Abdul Alim : 3 years back the working day started for the workers of Rana Plaza factories became a deadliest day. For some of them was the last of the earth, for some of them was the first day as disable and the luckiest people rescued with minor physical injury but a permanent mental diseases. It was the deadliest accident of the world apparel industry where more than 1100 workers died. They have sacrificed their life to wake us up from the deep sleep.

The world was simply shocked and as a response more than 200 fashion brands and importers including Adidas, Gap, H&M, Target, and Wal-Mart quickly pledged $100 million through Accord and Alliance upgrade the safety condition of the country’s apparel industry.

There are 2297 factories are covered by Accord and Alliance improvement process. About another 1000 factories will be inspected by the ILO and Government department. This number is about half of the total factories are operating in Bangladesh. What about the rest of the workers? A research report of New York University states that over three millions of workers are not covered under the safety improvement program. It is not three millions but more than that as they did not count other than the apparel industries and even there is not statistics about the apparel industries who are not directly exporting.

Today is the day to talk about the collapse of Rana Plaza, the compensation of the victims and finally the improvements of the health and safety situation. But we cannot stop to discuss about only these things as the government is still not wake up. Government is only working to make the buyers satisfied and the buyers’ initiative also just to save their brands. But we need to concentrate on our people who are the asset of the country and keeping the continuous growth in GDP. We love to see the growth of the economy but will it be a justice not to love the people who are achieving this GDP target every year?

Thousands of factories like washing, dyeing, knitting, printing and accessories factories and so called informal industries are completely out of consideration either by the Government or by the initiatives driven by the fund of Brands like Accord and Alliance. If we think the Brands are very much worried about to save our life then we are living in a foolish world. They are worried about their own business. They need to produce the goods at a lower cost and make more profit. We should not expect that they will work for our infrastructure. If we expect that then we are again going back to accept the colonial system against what our forefathers fought for 200 years. When we are failing to enforce our laws and rules, others are coming and setting the regulation for us to follow and they are now enforcing the regulation. Where we are going?

All the workers are the citizen of the same country and have the right to get the same treatment. Government should enforce the law and rules to everywhere that protect the human rights at work and everywhere. It seems that human rights or workers rights or worker safety is only required once the international consumers react and put pressure on the brands. That means the benchmark of our worker rights is the consumer pressure worldwide. As a result of that fact we are only talking about the Apparel and Fashion industry which seems that god only angry with the fashion industry so that Rana Plaza collapse but other industry will not collapse or burnt out like Tazreen fashion. If the international consumers can react to see the workers blood under concrete then why our government and it’s machineries will not react for the life of the people of the country?

Millions of workers are working in mostly hazardous working conditions in different industries. We used say these are informal industries but I could not find any difference between the informal and formal industries in terms of human being, human rights and worker rights. They are also the human being who are working in Brick field, Steel mills, Ship Breaking Yards, Constructions, Motor workshop, Foundry, Plastic industries etc. Who is responsible for their safety?

It is the high time for our government to act equally to all the workers from all the industries not only a specific sector. Should not create any more space for any third party to rule over us but need to create the positive change in the local and export production sector. We need to be strong enough to bargain with our customers rather to say yes always to them and reduce the cost by cutting the benefits of the workers and compromising the safety. Brands will reduce the cost but not compromising the quality, it is the universal system. They have their right to do business with us or not to do business with us. So that it the time now we need to make a decision that we want to competitive by compromising our life or improving our capability both quantitative and qualitative?

Finally the question is when we will ensure safety for us not for the customer?

Writer : Editor and Publisher, The RMG Times