Bangladesh’s apex garment makers’ body of BGMEA has underlined it is not ready to take responsibility for any problem arising during execution of sub-contract activities by factories that neither affiliated with it and the BKMEA even if the garment makers’ body has extended full support to the member factories if the relevant committee is notified of the need to carry out sub-contract activities.
Media reports maintained this while adding the BGMEA’s decision towards the same was informed to its member factories in a notification issued recently, based on the first meeting of its standing committee on subcontracting, presided over by BGMEA Vice-President Shahidullah Azim.
It may be mentioned here that factories not affiliated with BGMEA and the BKMEA were left out of the investigation that followed the Rana Plaza collapse in 2013 even if at least 3,500 factories were visited by Accord and Alliance, two initiatives of the Western buyers, and the International Labor Organization (ILO) but not the ones which were not members of BGMEA or BKMEA.
There have, reportedly, been cases of complaints of various irregularities including making workers work extra hours, not having fire safety measures and operating with substandard infrastructure regarding non-member units that are into sub-contracting.
