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Showing posts with label Dhaka. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dhaka. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Months After Deadly Fire, Owners of Bangladesh Factory Surrender to Court

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.nytimes.com



DHAKA, Bangladesh — A husband and wife whose factory in Bangladesh was consumed by fire in 2012, a disaster that killed 112 employees, surrendered to a court on Sunday in Dhaka, the capital.
In December, more than a year after the fire, the police filed charges of culpable homicide against the owners of the Tazreen factory — Delowar Hossain, and his wife, Mahmuda Akther, along with 11 associates, including the factory’s manager and an engineer.
On the night of the fire, more than 1,150 people were in the eight-story building, working on a tight deadline to fill orders for international buyers. When the fire broke out and an alarm sounded, some managers told their employees to ignore the alarm and continue to work.
As the fire spread, many workers found themselves trapped in smoke-filled staircases or behind windows that were covered with iron grilles.
Mr. Hossain’s lawyer, A. T. M. Golam Gous, whose motion for bail was rejected on Sunday, argued that Mr. Hossain and Ms. Akther were not present at the time of the fire and had “neither direct involvement nor indirect involvement” in it. Mr. Gous said he would appeal the denial of bail.
A state prosecutor, Anwarul Kabir, meanwhile, argued that the owners had failed to make the necessary arrangements to ensure the safety and security of the workers.
Because the owners are “the...
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Friday, November 29, 2013

Arson blamed for huge Bangladesh garment factory fire

It is feared that thousands of people could lose their jobs as a result of the blaze
Arson is being blamed for a huge fire at a garment factory in Bangladesh which makes clothes for Western brands, fire and police authorities say.
The fire gutted a 10-storey building at Gazipur, 40km (25 miles) from Dhaka.
Firemen are battling to extinguish flames in four adjacent buildings.
Smoke rises from the fire at the Standard Group garment factory in GazipurPolice say that the fire follows protests by garment workers to demand higher wages and better conditions. A garment factory collapse in April killed more than 1,100 people.
No-one was reported injured in Friday's fire.
The fire inside the Standard Group garment factory warehouse is believed to have caused million of dollars worth of damage The blaze also destroyed numerous trucks carrying garments for export, officials say A large consignment of clothes for export abroad was damaged in the fire
A Reuters photographer at the Standard Group garment factory said that burnt garments were strewn at the scene bearing brand names from US and other international retailers.
Officials say that the factory was one of the biggest in the country and as many as 18,000 people worked there.
At least 15 trucks carrying garments were also reported to have been set on fire.
"We think it's an act of arson committed by workers from both inside the factory complex and outside," Mosharraf Hossain, a senior officer...
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Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Dozens Hurt in Bangladesh Garment Factory Protest

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from abcnews.go.com


Riot police fired tear gas to battle thousands of stone-throwing garment workers who rampaged through two industrial towns in Bangladesh during a protest over wages Tuesday that closed at least 200 factories and left dozens of people injured, police said.
The protesters built roadblocks with abandoned vehicles and wooden logs in violence that highlighted the poor working conditions in an industry that earns Bangladesh $20 billion in exports yearly but whose workers are the lowest paid in the world.
Thousands of angry workers hurled stones at security forces and attacked factories in the towns of Savar and Ashulia outside the capital, Dhaka, Industrial Police Director Mustafizur Rahman said. At least 200 factories closed in the second day of the protest, and 80 people were injured over two days.
Authorities deployed hundreds of paramilitary border guards to help police fighting the protesters.
"We can't accept the wages that are being offered to us. This is not enough for us," said Kahirul Mamun Mintu, a protest leader at Savar. "Our movement will continue until our demands are met."
A government-appointed panel voted last week to raise the minimum wage for garment workers to 5,300 takas ($66.25) a month — a raise by 77 percent but still the lowest minimum wage in the world. The workers are demanding 8,114 takas ($100) instead.
Factory owners have not endorsed the proposal, arguing the proposed wage for an unskilled newcomer would increase production costs...
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Saturday, October 12, 2013

Deadly factory fire again underlines importance of Bangladesh Accord

Fashion Safety continues to be flamed by fires and failue in safety. Today's post is shared from .industriall-union.org

The IndustriALL Bangladesh Council of trade union affiliates is working to assist the humanitarian relief effort following the fire that also injured a reported 50. The joint IBC team is working with both the families of the victims and the injured workers. This effort will coordinate with the labour ministry and the employer associations BGMEA and BKMEA.

135 workers of the factory complex's 2,000 strong workforce were inside the two-story building when the blaze took hold around 5.30pm.

Investigations are ongoing and we must wait to learn the causes of the fire. The Gazipur factory fire is shocking, but not surprising. The Bangladesh government has estimated that at least 50% of the country’s garment factories are dangerous.

IndustriALL Global Union General Secretary Jyrki Raina said,
This is a truly shocking tragedy. It underlines the need for urgent action to make the safety improvements that are so badly needed in Bangladesh’s ready-made garment factories. Through the Bangladesh Accord, we will be doing our utmost to make progress as quickly as possible, so that we can avoid tragedies like this in the future.
UNI Global Union General Secretary Philip Jennings said,
The Bangladesh Accord, by bringing together industry and trade unions, will help to ensure that long-overdue safety improvements are made. We know the size of the...
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Thursday, October 10, 2013

Fashion Safety: The Tragedy Continues

Fashion Safety continues be be a major problem in Bangladesh. One a catalyst for increased regulation, the movement continues lack sufficient traction to make a difference. Today post is shared from retail-week.com.


Nine people have died following a fire in a Bangladesh factory renewing concerns about the safety of the country’s garment industry that supplies many of the world’s biggest retailers.
The fire broke out at the Aswad factory in Gazipur outside of Dhaka yesterday. The factory has supplied goods to Canadian retailers Loblaw, which owns Joe Fresh, according to shipping data provider ImportGenius.com. The Wall Street Journal reported Aswad had also produced clothes for Wal-Mart.
The deaths come after the devastating collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex in Dhaka in April which killed more than 1,100 people.
The disaster led to an industry-wide move to improve safety in the country. Retailers includingPrimarkH&MRiver Island and Arcadia have signed up to the Bangladesh factory safety Accord led by union IndustriALL.
By signing the Accord, retailers agreed to a legally binding pledge to contribute up to $500,000 (£325,000) a year towards rigorous independent factory inspections and the installation of fire safety measures.
Yesterday Primark, which was one of many western retailers which used a factory situated within Rana Plaza, committed to paying six months wages as compensation.
A Primark spokesman said: “Primark takes its responsibilities extremely seriously. To help alleviate short-term hardship, the company is committed to paying six months wages to more than 3,500 Rana Plaza workers, or their families, irrespective of whether they made...

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Bangladesh Deploys Paramilitary in Garment Zone After Protests

International Fashion Safety is becoming an international catalyst for change. Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.bloomberg.com


Bangladesh’s government deployedparamilitary troops in the industrial belt of Gazipur to deterfurther protests as garment factories reopened after five daysof violent demonstrations.
“The situation is now relatively calm,” MostafijurRahman, additional superintendent of police for Gazipurdistrict, said in a phone interview. Television footage showedthe troops patrolling streets where workers attacked factoriesand blocked traffic earlier this week to demand wage increases.
The government is acting after factory owners met HomeMinister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir yesterday to urge tightersecurity. Thousands of garment workers clashed with police thisweek in the industrial belt on the outskirts of Dhaka, forcingabout 400 factories that supply companies such as Wal-MartStores Inc. to close.
“Unrest in the garment sector will be firmly dealt with,”the minister told reporters, after the meeting.
The labor unrest came five months after the collapse of theeight-story Rana Plaza factory complex killed more than 1,000people in the worst industrial accident in the South Asiancountry’s history. Low wages and production costs have helpedspawn the country’s $19 billion manufacturing industry thatsupplies global retailers with cheap clothes.
The protestors, some of whom pelted factories with bricksand blocked a highway, demanded a minimum monthly salary of8,114 taka ($104), up from 3,000 taka now. Retailers such asWal-Mart, Inditex SA, Gap Inc. and ...
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Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Doing Business in Bangladesh

International fashion safety continues mirror the genesis of the workers" compensation moment in the US. Today's post was shared by WCBlog and comes from www.nytimes.com


The owner of a clothing factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, was at New York University last week to meet with clothing industry executives, labor activists and American and European government officials to talk about the Bangladeshi garment industry, the world’s second-biggest exporter of clothes after China.

The workplace disasters in this business have grabbed the world’s attention, and for the past year, Western retailers that outsource their clothing production to Bangladesh have tried to come up with reforms. But there are big obstacles to improving safety in an industry driven by low profits and constant upheaval.

I met with the businessman and another factory owner; both would speak only on the condition that they not be identified because they feared offending their customers. A central problem, the first owner told me, is the rapid turnaround big retailers like Walmart demand when they put in orders for tens of thousands of T-shirts or shorts. Since his factory isn’t able to make all the garments in time, he has to send some of the work to smaller producers. “I can’t do it officially,” he said, “but unofficially, I can.”
Unauthorized subcontracting to smaller, uninspected factories is not supposed to happen, but it remains an entrenched practice. It is a primary reason safety guidelines that apply to bigger contractors have not prevented the hundreds of worker deaths in fires and building collapses in facilities like Rana...

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