Half of country's apparel factories found socially compliant

FE Team | Published: July 19, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Half of the country's apparel factories have so far been found socially compliant, a meeting on industrial compliance was told in the city Wednesday, reports UNB.
The meeting urged the government as well as the industry stakeholders to take a coordinated move to ensure compliance in the rest of the factories.
A tripartite monitoring team of government, employers and workers found the improvement on compliance issues and stressed that the industry has a long way to go to get over the limitations that still exist in the industry.
"To face the challenge of compliance, we feel that the government and all the stakeholders must work together," Labour and Employment Adviser Anwarul Iqbal told the meeting, apprising the implementation status of ensuring social compliance in the factories.
The one-day meeting titled 'National Tripartite Meeting on Social Compliance in the RMG Industry' was inaugurated by Adviser Iqbal at a city hotel in the morning. Commerce Ministry, Labour and Employment Ministry and ILO jointly organised the second such tripartite meeting.
The meeting, chaired by Commerce Secretary Feroz Ahmed, aimed at reviewing the status of social compliance and eliciting views of the social partners on the challenges and opportunities in the RMG industry, particularly about social compliance. Labour and Employment Secretary was present at the meeting as special guest.
Addressing the meeting, Advisor Iqbal said the core contents of the social standards include effective abolition of exploitative condition of child labour, abolition of forced labour, rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining, elimination of discrimination in employment and right to minimum wage.
"Bangladesh has already ratified seven out of eight core ILO conventions relating to international labour standards," he said. To overcome the problems associated with regulatory environment, the government has enacted several laws.
'The Bangladesh Labour Law 2006' was enacted repealing 25 laws related to labour, the adviser informed. The other important step was enactment of the 'Bangladesh Workers Welfare Foundation Act 2006'.