rana plaza, the accord & the bare minimum

This past April marked nine years since the Rana Plaza collapse, one of the most horrific disasters faced by the garment industry. On April 24, 2013, an eight-story commercial building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, called Rana Plaza, collapsed, killing 1,134 people and injuring approximately 2,500 people. The building, which housed clothing factories, a bank, apartments and several shops, was advised to be evacuated by an engineer after a wall on the third floor split open. A survivor interviewed by The New York Times stated, "the crack was so huge I could put my hand in it." Although management sent everyone home after a warning, garment workers were ordered to return to work the following day, threatening to withhold a month's pay from employees who refused. On April 24, 2013, generators on the top floor were started due to a power outage, and the eight-story building collapsed, leaving only the foundation intact. 

The catastrophic collapse called for the creation of the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety. The Accord, initiated by Bangladeshi trade unions, Global Union Federations and labour rights groups, was made to improve factory safety for 2 million garment workers in Bangladesh. The Accord is a binding agreement which has repercussions for brands, retailers and factories who do not take enough action regarding workplace and factory safety. Below you can see more about the Accord:

The Accord(s): 

• requires signatory brands to disclose their suppliers and requires independent building inspections on fire, electrical and structural safety, workers' rights training and a review of safety standards

• puts responsibility and onus on fashion brands and their supplier factory to compensate workers during factory closures for remediation and maintenance resulting from inspections

• governance structure has unions taking up half the seats, helping hold brands accountable.

• has carried out inspections, overseen repairs and trained workers in the field of safety, covering over 1,600 factories supplying more than 200 brands

• factory inspections identified over 144,000 fire, electrical and structural hazards, more than 90% of which were remediated

• resulted in the training of over 1.7 million workers on workplace safety and resolved 359 safety and rights complaints

Although the Accord is taking the first steps to protect garment workers, this is the bare minimum for brands outsourcing their operations to Bangladesh (and everywhere else in the world). Fast fashion has played a part in the exploitation of garment workers overseas and thus the collapse of Rana Plaza. The pressure to produce massive quantities of clothing in such a short time frame ends up being applied to those most vulnerable in the supply chain: exploited garment workers like those who had their lives cut short due to the Rana Plaza Collapse.

One of the brands that used the services of those in Rana Plaza before the collapse, Primark, reported a 20% increase in sales just months after the incident. This fact was hard to stomach. On one end of the company's operations, profits were being made, while on the other, thousands were being exploited and losing their lives over unsafe working conditions. We cannot wait to take action until another tragedy as catastrophic as the Rana Plaza Collapse for organizations outsourcing their work to developing countries to realize what atrocities continue to occur to garment workers worldwide.

We are nowhere close to perfect, but we are trying our best! If you have any questions or concerns related to this article please reach out to us at sourcing@yannai.ca. Your feedback is valued and encouraged!