This was not Bangladesh’s first large garment factory fire. The campaigners claimed that for many years, brands and factory managers had known about the risks to garment workers, but they failed to take corrective action.
“Only after the Rana Plaza building came crashing down exactly six months later did brands rush to action and sign the legally binding Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.”
Despite being ten years later, many brands have not learned from Rana Plaza and Tazreen’s preventable deaths. Major brands connected to the Tazreen fire, like Walmart, Sears, and Disney, as well as brands implicated in the Rana Plaza collapse, like French supermarket chain Auchan, JC Penney, The Children’s Place and, again, Walmart, have yet to sign the International Accord for Safety and Health in the Textile and Garment Industry, the campaigners said.
This binding agreement is between brands and unions, which has now replaced the Bangladesh Accord.
“It is a disgrace that while 186 brands have signed this agreement, some laggards, most notably several brands which have first-hand experience with workers dying in their factories, have failed to commit to protecting the safety of the workers in their supply chain,” said Kamrul Hasan from Akota Garment Workers Federation.
Today, Femnet and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights sent a notice note to the brands who fall within the German supply chain law. The Accord will be in effect from January 1st next year. The list includes German brands Tom Tailor and Deichmann, Swedish furniture- and home-textile giant IKEA, as well US online retailer Amazon.
It warned companies that they might face criminal prosecution if they fail to sign up for the initiative.
While legal action should not be necessary for brands to take their workers’ safety to heart, the campaigners hoped that this would be the final push for major brands like Amazon and IKEA to sign the Accord and make other companies follow.
Clean Clothes Campaign claims that the legally binding, enforceable system which holds companies responsible for their suppliers has proved its value ten years on from the Tazreen fire and over nine years later, since its inception, has shown its effectiveness. The statement claims that it prevented large-scale industry losses and has made factories more secure.
Clean Clothes Campaign and its Bangladeshi partners and global allies pledged to continue to monitor if the Accord’s Bangladesh operations keep these records up, by taking action against non-compliant factories, being transparent about its operations, and continuing to ensure workers can speak out without fear of retaliation by management.
The alliance stated that workers who have been injured in or lost in accidents at factories in the ten years since the Tazreen Fire must be able to receive financial compensation.