BGMEA cancels 586 memberships

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Monira Munni The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) cancelled membership of about 586 apparel manufacturing units in its board meeting on December 29, officials said. "We cancelled the membership of about 586 members in our board meeting last month," BGMEA Vice President Faruque Hassan told the FE. The move came, as the trade body is always held responsible after any untoward accident in the RMG sector, he said. "We took the decision not only for compliance issues, but there were some other issues too. Besides, many of the factories do not exist." But some of these factories execute orders through sub-contracts in the peak season. The sub-contractors hardly pay any attention to compliance issues, and so, often face accidents. "We also asked the sub-contractors to sell the non-functional factories or to merge with others," he said. The association will soon request all the authorities concerned, including the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), so that they stop facilitating the RMG units who are still running their business though their memberships have been cancelled, he added. Earlier, after the devastating fire incident in Tazreen Fashions Ltd on November 24 last year, BGMEA took the plan to cancel membership of about 850 non-compliant units. The Tazreen tragedy, which claimed lives of 112 workers and injured several others, drew significant local and international attention. In an emergency meeting after the incident, the foreign buyers' representatives put pressure on the manufacturers for ensuring workers' occupational and health safety at every work place. After the fire occurrence, a GSP sub-committee under the Trade Policy Staff Committee thought that Bangladesh did not make much progress in addressing workers' rights issues. So, it is considering recommending that GSP (generalised system of preferences) benefits, given to Bangladesh, should be withdrawn, suspended or limited. This month the European Parliament has adopted a resolution on the casualties of Tazreen fire, and asked the Bangladeshi authorities concerned to ensure all safety measures for preventing a recurrence of such tragedy. BGMEA in a similar move in 2002 also cancelled membership of 550 factories, said Siddiqur Rahman, another vice president of the association. "Now 5,500 factories are our listed members," he added.