ILO says Bangladesh garment deal should be global

Measures by top Western retailers to improve safety in Bangladesh’s garment factories after a disaster that claimed more than 1,000 lives should be adopted worldwide, a top UN official said Monday.

“It’s clear we shouldn’t make a double standard,” said Gilbert Houngbo, deputy director general of the International Labour Organization.

“In Bangladesh, yes, but we have to make sure that the other countries, in the region and also in other regions, have it,” the former prime minister of Togo told reporters.

The garment sector was spurred into action by April’s collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex near the Bangladeshi capital Dkaha, which claimed 1,135 lives in one of the world’s worst ever industrial disasters.

The tragedy, coming in the wake of a factory fire in November 2012 that killed 117 people, led to pledges from big-name Western retailers and the Bangladeshi government to improve conditions.

Planned measures include more frequent fire and construction-safety inspections as well as expanded union rights.

Critics who have long pointed to risky conditions in the factories of the developing world note bitterly that it took more than 1,000 deaths in a single tragedy to jolt the sector into action.

“Unfortunately this is always what makes the whole international community, and national communities, move,” Houngbo said as he launched an ILO report on the Bangladeshi economy.

“My only hope is that, at least, for Bangladesh, there will be no repeat,” he added.

Bangladesh’s $22 billion (16 billion euro) garment industry is the world’s second largest after China’s and exports 80 percent of its output to Europe and North America, giving their retailers huge clout in its economy.

The sector is a top employer, but its four million workers, most of whom are women, are paid as little as $38 a month.

In the face of growing labour unrest following April’s disaster, Bangladesh has opted to hike the sector’s minimum wage by 76 percent to $68 beginning in December — only the fourth pay increase since 1985.

Unions complain however that skilled employees have been deprived, and further note that some bosses are cutting food and transport allowances to offset the wage hikes.

Even the new wage level will leave Bangladeshi garment workers behind their counterparts in other major exporting nations such as Cambodia, where the figure is $80, Sri Lanka ($73) and Vietnam ($78).

The wage issue has become sharply political in Bangladesh, with pro-government unions accepting $68 and left-leaning labour groups demanding $100.

It has also fed into broader strife.

Bangladesh has been reeling from a spate of violence since late October after the opposition launched protests to force Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and make way for elections in January.

Houngbo said he feared politics could distort efforts to improve labour standards.

“I really hope to be wrong, but after the election, depending on how it goes, and if the international and media attention is a bit off, if this is off-radar, what will be the impact? This is really the danger,” he said.