1. A Safe Workplace Can the ILO’s Better Factories Cambodia Program
Benefit Bangladesh’s Dangerous Garment Factories?

2. Corporate Social Responsibility
Codes of conduct
International labor standards
• Compliance determined by auditing and monitoring programs

3. Protecting Labor Rights Through Trade Agreements
“Garment Sector Working Conditions Improvement Project”
(currently known as “Better Factories Cambodia”)
• 1999 U.S.-Cambodia Bilateral Textile Trade Agreement
• ILO conducts factory monitoring
• “Real inroads have been made but there is still room to improve.”

4. Bangladesh Densely populated - 150 million people
Garment industry is relatively young but it is the source of 76% of Bangladesh’s exports
2 million garment workers – 85% are women
Among the lowest paid in the world
Face opposition for their right to unionize
Hazardous conditions are ‘normal’

5. Problem Statement
• In the last five years, at least 172 Bangladesh garment factory workers died as a result of hazardous working conditions.
• Even with elaborate labor laws, foreign company audits and national monitoring programs, the Bangladesh garment industry is considered one of the most dangerous industries in the world.

6. Reasons for repeated fatal accidents in garment factories
Inadequate auditing and monitoring programs
Poor infrastructure
Unchecked building standards
Insufficient safety arrangements

7. Garib & Garib Sweater Factory February 25, 2010
21 workers died
Exits were locked
Materials blocked stairways
The factory’s fire equipment was useless
Security guards did know how to operate fire extinguishers

8. Survivors of the Garib & Garib fire
"Everyone who worked on the top floor died, because the exits were locked. All of them were women. They were trapped and they suffocated.”

9. Garib & Garib . . . again Factory closed after March fire
Re-opened April 1, 2010
Another fire on April 13, death, 10 injured
3rd fire in less than 2 years

10. “Came to work alive; don't want to go home a corpse.”

11. Garment Industry Deaths since 1990
21 killed at Garib and Garib Factory, Gazipur, 2010
62 killed at KTS Garments, Chittagong, 2006
23 killed at Shan Knitting, Narayanganj, 2005
• 74 killed at Spectrum Sweater, Dhaka, 2005
23 killed at Chowdhury Knitwear, Narsingdi, 2004
23 killed at Macro Sweater, Dhaka, 2000
12 killed at Globe Knitting, Dhaka, 2000
24 killed at Shanghai Apparels, Dhaka, 1997
20 killed at Jahanara Fashion, Narayanganj, 1997
22 killed at Lusaka Garments, Dhaka, 1996
32 killed at Saraka Garments, Dhaka, 1990
(Source: The Daily Star, March 1, 2010)

12. Spectrum Factory collapse April 2005
74 workers buried alive
Built on marshland
Four-floor building approved
Nine-floor building was built

13. Responsibility
International brands – ALL companies in the garment supply chain
Bangladesh Government
World Trade Organization
Bangladesh garment industry

14. International brands Compliance is not enforced to keep business going
Fails to detect day-to-day issues
Workers should but are not involved in the process
Audits should be more transparent and accountable to workers

15. Bangladesh government
Extensive national labor rights policies pertaining to occupational safety and health in place; no enforcement
Party to various ILO conventions; but they are not implemented

16. The World Trade Organization
Lacks consideration of the link between trade and the conditions under which goods are manufactured 
Workers would enjoy more protection if the WTO recognized such provisions

17. Bangladesh garment industry
Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and
Exporters Association
(BGMEA)
• Conflicting interests
• Impotent monitoring program due to a lack of manpower

18. Laws being violated • Various ILO Conventions
C29 Forced Labour Convention, 1930
C81 Labour Inspection Convention, 1947
C89 Night Work (Women) Convention (Revised), 1948
• Bangladesh Labor Laws 1996
Part 3: Occupational Health, Safety and Welfare
• Bangladesh Factory Act of 1965
Chapter III Health and Hygiene
Chapter IV Safety

19. Proposed Solution
The basic premise established in Better Factories Cambodia could offer Bangladesh the best way forward.
“ILO’s Better Factories Cambodia program, has been more beneficial to workers than any anti-sweatshop campaign.”

20. Venue of Discussion • Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC)
The CCC is a network of coalitions that aim to improve working conditions in the global garment and sportswear industries.
The organization has been calling for a review of all Bangladeshi garment factories since 2000.
• The International Labor Organization
In collaboration with CCC, a letter to the ILO, suggesting a program based on Better Factories Cambodia.