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Major international retailers and labor unions have expanded their agreements on ensuring the safety of factory workplaces.
Major global retailers have reached a two-year agreement with Bangladeshi garment workers and factory owners to extend a pre-existing agreement. If their factories do not meet labor safety standards, retailers will take responsibility.
According to a Reuters report on Wednesday, the statement was signed by Joris Oldenziel, deputy director of the transaction, and representatives of the UNI Global Alliance and IndustriALL Global Alliance, confirming the contents of a copy of the agreement.
The statement said: “This is a legally binding agreement between the company and the trade union to ensure the safety of RMG and textile factories.”
“The renewed agreement advances the essential elements that make the agreement successful.”
The original agreement, the Bangladesh Agreement, was originally scheduled to expire on August 31.
The new version came into effect on September 1, and was named the International Health and Safety Agreement for the Textile and Apparel Industry to reflect its broader impact.
About 200 retailers signed the agreement in 2013, including retail giants H&M, Inditex, Fast Retailing’s Uniqlo, Hugo Boss and Adidas. According to reports, a list of signed extension agreements will be provided on September 1.
A Uniqlo spokesperson said that they have not seen the new agreement, but they “support the new binding agreement in general…with independent supervision and extension to other countries.”
H&M, Inditex, Hugo Boss and Adidas did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Bangladeshi firefighters and rescuers in the ruins of a boiler explosion in a garment factory in Gazipur, on the outskirts of Dhaka [File: AM Ahad/AP]The five-year agreement was reached after the collapse of Rana Plaza in 2013 and more than 1,100 garment workers died. The agreement established an independent agency, conducted thousands of inspections, and prohibited unsafe factories from signing contracts. Buyers supply.
Labor activists say this helps make about 1,600 factories safer for 2 million workers.
According to the transitional agreement reached in 2018 after the expiration of the original agreement, a newly established organization, the Garment Sustainability Committee (RSC) composed of unions, brands and factory owners, took over the factory inspections.
However, RSC has not taken over part of the agreement-if the retailer fails to fulfill its obligations, including disconnecting from factories that do not meet the standards of the agreement, they can try the retailer in the courts of their country of residence.
The signatories also agreed to discuss within six months which countries the agreement can be extended to, with the goal of establishing it in at least another country within two years, it said.
Bangladesh is the second largest garment exporter in the world after China [File: Shafiqul Alam/Corbis via Getty Images]According to sources, negotiations on the extension of the agreement came to a deadlock in May because the US-based retailer refused to agree to the legally binding part of the agreement.
Retailers that did not want to sign the original agreement in 2013-including Target, Walmart, and VF Corp-formed a parallel alliance with similar functions but no legal enforcement power.
Sources said in May that those leading the negotiations had hoped to negotiate an extension that American retailers were also willing to adopt.
But Walmart told Reuters on Tuesday that this is not part of the agreement extension. Target and VF Corp did not respond to requests for comment.
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