National Retail Federation executives, post their recent visit to Bangladesh said a report issued by the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety reflects improvements in garment worker safety they saw during tours of factories and other facilities.
“The Alliance is doing important work to ensure the safety of Bangladeshi workers who make clothing worn by millions of Americans and other consumers around the world. We saw first-hand in the past few days that significant progress has been made to improve conditions at factories in Bangladesh and that work is on track to see more improvements in the future,” mentioned David French, NRF Senior Vice President for Government Relations.
The Alliance’s annual report, which was released in Dhaka on Thursday and is being released today in the United States, shows that as of July more than 500 of the 662 factories used by member companies had received the first of two major safety inspections conducted by the Alliance to create a safer environment for garment workers. The factories had completed between 20 and 80 percent of repairs and six had passed final inspection. The Alliance said it had completed work with the International Finance Corporation to provide US $ 50 million in affordable, long-term loans to factory workers and another US $ 18 million in assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Development for upgrades to factories that might not be eligible for the IFC program.
NRF is the world’s largest retail trade association, representing discount and department stores, home goods and specialty stores, Main Street merchants, grocers, wholesalers, chain restaurants and Internet retailers from the United States and more than 45 countries. Retail is the nation’s largest private sector employer, supporting one in four U.S. jobs – 42 million working Americans. Contributing US $ 2.6 trillion to annual GDP, retail is a daily barometer for the nation’s economy.
