Seventeen leading US and Canadian clothing retailers announced on Wednesday a program to enforce safer conditions for workers in Bangladesh garment plants, after the collapse of a factory building killed more than 1,100.
The retailers, led by Walmart and Gap, called the safety record of Bangladesh factories “unacceptable” and said that all parties involved in the country’s huge garment export industry needed to be accountable, including factory owners and the government as well as buyers.
The 17 established a five year program, the Bangladesh Worker Safety Initiative, to set “aggressive timelines and accountability” for inspections, worker training and worker empowerment, they said in a statement.
“The safety record of Bangladeshi factories is unacceptable and requires our collective effort. We can prevent future tragedies by consolidating and amplifying our individual efforts to bring about real and sustained progress,” they said in a statement.
“A primary goal of the alliance is the engagement of and partnership with the Bangladeshi and US governments, as well as with the factory owners to ensure that there is accountability among all parties and thus the opportunity for sustained and lasting change in Bangladesh.”
The deal followed a similar commitment by 70 mainly European retailers to boost safety in Bangladesh plants, which have a long record of worker deaths from fires and other dangerous conditions.
In April an nine story building housing several factories that supplied some of the world’s biggest names in fashion collapsed, killing 1,129 people in one of the world’s worst industrial disasters.
US retailers set safety plan for Bangladesh factories
