Articles Tagged with ''bangladesh worker safety''

On May 7th, representatives of the organizations listed below heard presentations from the Embassy of Bangladesh, the Bangladesh Accord for Fire and Building Safety, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, and the U.S. Department of Labor’s International Labor Affairs Bureau on ongoing efforts to improve safety and health in the 3,600 cut-and-sew factories that make up Bangladesh’s “ready made garment” industry.

On one side we have the Europeans. On the other, the United States. The different approaches the two are taking to provide aid to Bangladesh factory workers says a good bit about the cultural differences involved.

In the face of international criticism over the dangerous conditions in its garment factories, Bangladeshi has passed a new law aimed at improving conditions – although the export-oriented factories which make up the bulk of Bangladesh’ garment industry are exempted from a major provision.

A proposal unveiled this week by Walmart and the Gap aimed at improving safety for garment factory workers in Bangladesh who make the goods sold by the retailers has been met with jeers by labor and safety activists, who say the plan is badly flawed and puts profits above safety.

EHS professionals who are interested in a professional challenge – and living abroad – may want to send a resume to the steering committee of the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, a multi-national effort to bring about safer and healthier conditions for factory workers in Bangladesh.

Since the Rana Plaza building collapse killed more than 1,100 people in April, retailers have faced mounting pressure to improve safety at Bangladesh garment factories and to sever ties with manufacturers that don't measure up.

The U.S. government is soliciting ideas for improving safety standards in garment factories in Bangladesh. The Department of Labor's Bureau of International Labor Affairs yesterday announced a $2.5 million competitive grant solicitation to fund improvements in the enforcement and monitoring of fire and building safety standards to better protect garment workers in Bangladesh.

Walmart and an industry group representing many U.S. retailers say they will not join an international pact intended to improve factory conditions in Bangladesh’s garment industry – although many global retailers have signed the agreement.

“We suffer in this age from an indifference toward criminality and a callousness to catastrophe when it comes to poor and working people.” That quote comes from retired Princeton professor Dr. Cornel West in a recent interview in the London-based newspaper The Guardian. Dr. West has been called the firebrand of American academia for almost 30 years.

The death toll in that collapsed Bangladesh factory building has reached 1, 127 people – making it the world’s worst industrial disaster since the 1984 Bhopal gas leak in India, which claimed an estimated 3,787 lives.