Retailers pressed on safety at factories

A wide spectrum of government officials, investors and religious groups are warning major retailers like Walmart, Benetton and Gap that they could face financial repercussions from consumers, damage to their stock value or sustained public protests if they do not adopt stricter garment manufacturing standards.

With the death toll rising above 1,000 two weeks after an eight-story factory building collapsed in Bangladesh, organisations and officials say they have been growing impatient with American and European retailers and apparel brands because only two companies — PVH, the parent company of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger; and Tchibo, a German retailer — have signed onto a binding agreement on safety standards for factories. That agreement would commit companies to allow independent inspections of the apparel factories they use, to terminate business at factories that do not quickly correct violations and to underwrite needed safety improvements. For example, many garment factories in Bangladesh lack basic means for workers to flee in case of fire — specifically fire escapes and smokeproof enclosed staircases.

Avaaz, a human rights group, has collected 875,000 signatures on a petition urging Gap and H&M to sign on to the plan to commit to fire safety improvements at Bangladesh factories. New York City’s comptroller, John C Liu, who oversees city pension funds owning more than five million Walmart shares, is warning the company that it risks damage to its public image unless it does more on factory safety in Bangladesh.

And the Rev Seamus P Finn, representing shareholders from the Catholic organisation Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, has been circulating a letter among religious organisations — groups that control more than $100 billion in assets — to express displeasure with the nation’s retailers. He says the retailers have not done nearly enough to improve workplace safety for the more than three million garment workers in Bangladesh.

“What happened in Bangladesh is a game-changer because of the gravity of the situation and the tremendous loss of life,” Father Finn said. “People are really coming to life about this and saying, ‘We need to do something.’ ”

Not just Western retailers are encountering more pressure after the April 24 collapse of the Rana Plaza building outside Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital. The nation’s government — known for lax building code enforcement — has suddenly grown tougher, closing 18 factories for safety violations. Three of those factories were run by the Nassa Group, the country’s largest clothing exporter, which counts Walmart and Sears among its customers.

Last weekend, the government also announced it would hire hundreds of additional factory inspectors.

The United States government has also been pressing Bangladesh and the apparel manufacturers there over safety. In January — two months after the Tazreen factory fire in Bangladesh killed 112 workers — the United States trade representative notified Bangladesh that Washington might withdraw, suspend or limit that country’s trading privileges. The trade representative was responding in part to a complaint that the AFL-CIO filed, asserting that the Bangladesh government had worked in concert with its apparel manufacturers to suppress labor unions.

“There are serious concerns in Bangladesh related to freedom of association, worker safety and other issues,” a senior official in the trade representative’s office said on Friday. The trade representative’s office says it will decide in June whether to take action against Bangladesh, although under esoteric trade rules, any penalties could not be directed against that country’s apparel industry.

The most visible pressures that retailers have faced are street protests, including one in Barcelona, where demonstrators wore shirts with fake blood stains to protest Mango, Benetton and other retailers. In the United States, university chapters of United Students Against Sweatshops have helped organise a series of demonstrations this week against Gap in Boston, Los Angeles, New York and Washington to press it on factory safety.

© 2013 The New York Times News Service