Accord continues to work, but employer lobby decides in the future

After Months of wrestling and several times Postponement of the decision The Supreme Court finally reached an agreement on the Accord in Bangladesh on 19 May 2019: The agreement on building safety and fire protection guarantees continued work for 281 days.

In addition, the agreement includes the establishment of a national safety committee, which will take over the activities of the Accord, as well as all its infrastructure and staff after that deadline. It is an agreement between the Accord Steering Committee and the BGMEA (Employers' Association of the Bangladeshi Clothing Industry) and is endorsed by the Bangladeshi government.

We very much welcome the fact that an agreement has now been reached that guarantees an orderly transition. However, the new Safety Committee will not only be composed of representatives of brand companies as well as global and national trade unions, as has been the case so far with the Accord, but will also include the BGMEA. The BGMEA is a very strong lobbying organisation, so that the question of independence and thus also the credibility of this new institution arises for us.

FEMNET and the Clean Clothes Campaign will monitor how the decision-making, financing and enforcement mechanisms of the announced successor institution are organised. It must be ensured that it works according to the same principles that have made the Accord credible and successful for the safety of workers.

Furthermore, solutions need to be developed for important aspects of the Accord Agreement that are not covered by the new agreement, such as the complaint mechanism and safety training for workers.

FEMNET speaker Sina Marx commented on May 21, 2019 at DW Business Asia live on this subject.

Background: This is how the Accord came into being.

On 15 May 2013, three weeks after the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh, Bangladeshi trade unions, global trade union federations and international fashion companies signed an agreement to make all textile factories in Bangladesh safe places of work. Independent safety investigations in the factories and the public reporting of the results of these investigations are part of the Accord Agreement. After five years, they wanted to Bangladesh's government and the national association of textile producers BGMEA, however, are pushing the building security agreement out of the country and thus prevent further work on the ground.