Thrust on concrete action plan to save RMG industry

FE Report Speakers at a national dialogue called upon all the stakeholders on Monday including owners and buyers to come up with a concrete plan of actions to protect the country's garment industry from manmade disasters. The discussants who included garment owners, representatives of workers' groups, industry experts, economists, members of civil society, ambassadors and other representatives of the international community also suggested continuous monitoring by the state-owned departments concerned over compliant issue to prevent anymore industrial incidents. They also called upon the international buyers to play a responsible role and invest more for ensuring better and safe working condition inside the apparel factories from where they source clothings. Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) organised the national dialogue titled, 'Savar Tragedy, Workers' Welfare and Looming Economic Crisis: What is to be done?' at a city hotel to assess where the industry stands and the way forward in terms of specific action plans. PPRC executive chairman Hossain Zillur Rahman moderated the function. "If our realisation hasn't come yet after the Savar building collapse then when we'll come to our sense. We must come out of the practices and come up seriously to prevent such incident from repeating," Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus said adding that nearly 1200 dead bodies have so far been recovered from the rubbles of the collapsed Rana Plaza in Savar. Speaking as a guest of honour at the function, he said the problem cannot be solved through blaming each other. "All of us are responsible for the tragedy and we should act as self critics to overcome it," he said. The Nobel Laureate said frequent incidents in the readymade garment (RMG) sector has started minimising the space of Bangladeshi garment products as the Walt Disney Co pulled out of the country. "The latest tragedy could put GSP (Generalised System of Preferences) for Bangladeshi products at risk and at the same time European Union is reconsidering whether they would buy cloth from us. This is not a good sign for the industry," he said. The Nobel Peace Award winner stressed on the importance of reviewing minimum monthly wage for workers, saying that the wage rate should immediately be readjusted upward at a level that ensures a decent lifestyle of the labourers. "We want to live as human being, not as slave," Professor Yunus said. "I'm also communicating with Peter Eigen, founder of Transparency International (TI), for initiating transparency index in garment industry to fix up a benchmark for buying RMG items," he said. President of Bangladesh Garment Manufactures and Exporters Association (BGMEA) Atiqul Islam said garment industry had started mushrooming here from late 80s. "Since then, garment factories have been housed in three categories of buildings - converted, shared and purposeful. "Around 60 to 70 per cent factories are still in shared buildings and 25 are in purposeful structures," he said, adding that the Prime Minister has already allocated a space of 530 acres of land at Bawsia for shifting the risky apparel factories. He sought cooperation from all the stakeholders to overcome the tragedy, saying that the sector has the potential of fetching US$ 50 billion by 2021. "We recently formed a high-powered committee to oversee the safety issues at each of the apparel units to prevent repetition of such industrial incidents," he added. President of Combined Garment Workers' Federation Nazma Akhter said both owners and retailers are in a race for gaining profits. "But nobody cares about the workers. That's why, such incidents frequently occur," she said. She said when the workers approached for reasonable wage, owners replied negatively citing global economic downturn. "At the same time buyers offered to buy one and get one free only to sell the products which they bought at much lower price," she said. "The buyers along with the owners should act responsibly and provide ethical price for their products. We want a healthy and secure working atmosphere inside the factories," president of United Federation of Garment Workers Roy Ramesh said. US Ambassador in Bangladesh Dan W Mozena said many workers in America are worried over the situation currently prevails in the RMG sector here. "Do something real and sustainable," he said, adding that the Bangladesh government and owners should seriously look into the matters like workers' rights to organise themselves, fire safety measures and factory inspection by well-trained inspectors. Executive Director of CPD Professor Mustafizur Rahman said the country had raised wages of workers by 4 per cent to Tk 1662 in 2006 when the national income increased by 74 per cent from 1996. "In the latest wage structure of 2010, the monthly wage went up to Tk 3000, which was also much lower then the national income," he said. Professor Jamilur Reza Chowdhury, Vice-Chancellor of Asia-Pacific University, said the country has enough laws, policies and regulations but implementation of these was very poor. He said the country had moved to introduce Bangladesh National Building Code back in 1993 but the government issued gazette notification about it after 13 years and in the meantime a number of buildings were erected illegally. International Chamber of Commerce, Bangladesh ((ICC-B) President Mahbubur Rahman said the people of the country have started forgetting hot issues like Hall-Mark loan scam and Destiny. "I'm afraid that people could forget the tragedy unless no action is taken. Don't blame the government alone for the incident and compensate the Rana Plaza victims without any further delay," he added. Former adviser of caretaker government Maj Gen (retd) Ghulam Quader said owners of the faulty factories should immediately go for retrofitting of their units to avert such disaster. Professor Rehman Sobhan, chairman of the CPD, said the civil society has a key role to play to oversee whether rehabilitation process of the Rana Plaza victims and their working standard inside the units are going on rightly. Mamun Rashid, vice chairman of Financial Excellence Limited, said they have already taken an initiative to financially rehabilitate 100 victims who have been seriously injured in the tragic building collapse. "The rehabilitation will help them earn Tk 10,000 a month. After their recovery, we'll also provide them loan from micro financial institutions," he added.