What comes as a pleasant announcement as a total of 322 garment factories under the supervision of Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety have completed the remediation work towards making a sustainable apparel industry.
Jim Moriarty, a former US Ambassador to Bangladesh and Executive Director of Alliance, made the revelation at the first triennial press conference of the platform of 28 North American fashion brands and retailers, held at The Westin Hotel, Dhaka, on March 15, 2018.
“I am very pleased to tell you that we (Alliance) have achieved remarkable progress in ensuring workplace safety at Bangladesh’s garment factories,” he said at the programme, adding, “Our factory remediation works are progressing swiftly, and, we have delivered on our promise and are walking in the right direction.”
All the active factories have completed 88 per cent remediation, including 84 per cent remediation of potentially fatal workplace standard, Moriarty added.
During its five years of operations in Bangladesh, the Alliance has cut ties with at least 162 non-compliant garment factories and trained around 1.5 million garment workers of over 1,000 factories in fire safety.
“We are proud of the achievements we reaped in the five years. We are now simultaneously conducting factory remediation works, worker training on safety and their empowerment. We thank the ILO, BGMEA, and other stakeholders for their support in our initiative,” Moriarty said.
Markedly, Alliance is among the platforms of foreign retailers that took shape in Bangladesh following some major industrial disasters like the Rana Plaza Collapse and Tazreen Fashions fire. Another such platform working for the same purpose is the Accord.
