Twelve years after Rana Plaza collapse, it is high time for legal protection for workers

Rana Plaza was not a freak incident, but a accumulation of deeply ingrained systemic issues plaguing the apparel industry. Despite an evacuation the day before, the cutthroat pressure of global supply chains meant that the work inside the building continued the next day. The poverty wages in the industry made workers enter under the threat of withholding pay. Lack of freedom of association meant that workers could not collectively resist.

Fearing backlash after the collapse, fashion brands initially made sweeping promises to do better. Most notably, H&M promised to pay living wages in its full supply chain within five years. Crucially, it took the pressure of one million signatures to convince brands to sign a binding agreement on building safety. Twelve years on, factories in Bangladesh are much safer, but poverty wages and lack of freedom of association prevail. It is time that all worker rights are guaranteed by binding agreements and laws.

Preventing and compensating workplace injuries and deaths

Most progress was made in the areas of factory safety. Yet, despite the widely recognised success of the legally binding Accord (signed by over 260 brands across the world), some garment and home textile brands continue to rely on ineffective voluntary self-checks or free-ride on the Accord. Kontoor Brands (Wrangler, Lee), Decathlon, Amazon, IKEA, Walmart, Urban Outfitters, and Tom Tailor are among the brands who continue to put their workers’ lives at risk.

To maintain the progress made in the past, it is also of vital importance that the Accord’s signatories address the excessive influence of employers in the implementation and governance system of the International Accord’s Bangladesh programme, the RMG Sustainability Council (RSC), as raised by CCC and other witness signatories to the Accord in a recent memo. 

Salahuddin Shapon, President of the Bangladesh Revolutionary Garment Workers Federation and Senior Vice President of the IndustriALL Bangladesh Council said: “Twelve years since the Rana Plaza collapse, it is vital that worker safety remains safeguarded. The safety committees at the factory level, trained by the Accord, are now in a weaker position because of the RSC, and a labour code amendment introduced in 2022 under the previous government reduced the rights of workers in factory level safety committees and granted more power to factory owners. This needs to be reversed.”

Kamrul Hassan, general secretary of the Akota Garment Worker Federation said: “The work of the Accord is all the more important at a time when new health and safety risks emerge in the wake of the climate crisis, such as heat stress and flood risk. Brands signatories should ensure that their participation in the programme proactively inspects for these health risks, and extends checks deeper into their supply chains.”   

Workplace injuries and deaths have not been fully eliminated from the industry, but since 2022 injured workers and families of killed workers can finally claim compensation under an Employment Injury Scheme pilot (EIS). Rashadul Alam Raju, general secretary of the Bangladesh Mukto Garment Sromik Union Federation (BIGUF) said: “The EIS pilot should turn into law to ensure that access to compensation is automatic and immediate for all workers or their families in case of workplace injury or death.”

End poverty wages and repression of workers demanding higher pay

Brands have been making lofty promises about living wages for many years, and yet, workers in Bangladeshi factories continue to earn poverty wages. The past twelve years have seen two failed minimum wage revisions processes, with brands refusing to support workers’ wage demands which, according to labour experts, were the bare minimum to lift workers above poverty wage, and far below the estimated living wage. Both cases resulted in grossly inadequate wage increases, followed by an eruption of protests and violent repression, with tens of thousands of workers still facing largely baseless charges. Clean Clothes Campaign’s ongoing campaign led to 9 [adapt if needed] mass cases annulled, and over 10,000 workers freed from pending legal charges. Babul Akhter, General Secretary of the Bangladesh Garment & Industrial Workers Federation (BGIWF) and president of the IndustriALL Bangladesh Council said: “Since Rana Plaza, brands have hardly increased, and sometimes even dropped, prices paid for products from Bangladesh. After years of broken promises, binding commitments from brands on wages are the only way to ensure dignified lives for garment workers.”

This needs to go hand in hand with improved legal protection for the enabling right for workers to stand up for themselves through organising. Brands should have a zero-tolerance policy towards union busting in its supply chains. This is extremely urgent, as only two years ago, a union leader was beaten to death after leaving a garment factory and most buyers have done nothing to compensate his family or prevent a tragedy like this from repeating.

Only legal obligations will make lasting change possible

Last year, on the anniversary of the Rana Plaza collapse, the European Parliament approved the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD): paving the way for its full adoption in June 2024. This text represented a first step towards global value chains free from human rights and labour abuses and where brands could be held legally accountable. Unfortunately, less than a year later, this groundbreaking legislation is under attack as the European Commission is proposing to water it down through an "Omnibus proposal". Kalpona Akter, founder of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity, and president of BGIWF said: "The Rana Plaza collapse could happen because brands looked away from the unsafe workplaces, poverty wages, and union busting in their supply chain. The twelve years since the collapse have shown that real change can only happen if brands' behaviours and practices are regulated by robust legal obligations. It is paramount that the CSDDD is not weakened."

With the ousting of the employer-dominated previous government, there’s a chance for a new era for workers’ rights. Unions and NGOs in Bangladesh, including many CCC network organisations, have played crucial roles in several of the advisory committees that have recently presented their recommendations. Clean Clothes Campaign calls on the interim government to heed the advice of the labour reform and women’s rights committees, whose recommendations are due to be published later this month, to ensure that Bangladesh’ laws will start putting workers’ interests first.