Amid an international outcry and promises by retailers to improve worker safety, Bangladesh is struggling to conduct even a crude assessment of the country’s garment factories.
To appreciate the Sisyphean task, spend a day with Mohammed Helal Ahmed, a 42-year-old-civil engineer in the Rajdhani Unnyan Kortripakhkha (Rajuk)or Dhaka city development authority, as he struggles through cursory factory inspections.
His day starts with a decrepit government car that breaks down and a list of misspelled factory names with partial addresses. Factory owners deny him entry to their buildings and stall for time. He encounters blocked fire exits, roofs sagging under heavy water tanks, and former apartment buildings that have been joined haphazardly. Workers whisper about cracks in walls, only to be shushed by security guards.
“It is completely unbelievable,” Ahmed said at sundown, sweat pouring off his forehead and his back aching after surveying four of the seven factories that had been on the day’s agenda. “So much work is needed immediately. Real action is needed.”
Until such action is taken, Ahmed and his 50 colleagues at the Rajuk are mostly compiling data in a superficial survey of the city’s factories. Even this basic step is hobbled by shortages of cars, engineers, money and information, emphasizing that efforts to oversee improvements cannot depend on the Bangladeshi government’s limited resources.
Instead, any attempt to improve safety conditions for Bangladesh’s 3 million or so garment workers will live and die on a coalition including retailers and unions that was cobbled together in the weeks after the horror of Rana Plaza.
No-Man’s Land
Ahmed’s surveys are a first round in the process still being hammered out to improve safety in the hope of avoiding disasters like the one at Rana Plaza, the factory building that collapsed and killed 1,127 people a month ago.
In two weeks, Ahmed and his colleagues at the Rajuk have surveyed about 300 of more than 3,500 factories in the sprawling capital of 18 million people. Close to 90% of those visited evoked serious concerns, warranting immediate repairs or demolitions, said Emdadul Islam, chief engineer at the Rajuk. About 1,500 more factories outside the city lie in a no-man’s land of jurisdictional confusion, he added.
Retail Pledge
The surveys are supposed to be followed by real inspections, including tests of steel beams and concrete, and then final plans for remediation, if resources can be found. For now, all that the local officials are trying to do is build a database that includes every factory, to collect photocopies of building plans and approvals, and to eye the situation.
“For evaluation we need experts,” said Tarek Uddin Mohammed, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Asia Pacific in Dhaka. “The government doesn’t have the necessary workforce.”
Discussions continue far from Dhaka, in places like Geneva and Frankfurt, among union leaders and retailers over the best methods for distributing money, and for working with local officials. A group of more than 39 retailers, mostly European, have pledged as much as $500,000 each for five straight years in one major fire and safety monitoring agreement. They’ve also agreed to pay for upgrades with suppliers.
At a May 23 meeting in Geneva, the International Labor Organisation together with retailers discussed the hiring of a safety inspector and team, and pinpointed factories with urgent needs under that agreement, which will cover 2,000 factories, according to Christy Hoffman, deputy general secretary of UNI Global Union.
Cost of Upgrades
“We want to get moving very quickly,” Hoffman said by phone. Though unlikely to start in June, inspections will begin in the coming months, she said.
Five years of renovations and retrofits could cost western retailers and Bangladesh owners as much as $600,000 a factory, or $3 billion over the next five years, according to an estimate by the Workers Right Consortium of Washington. So far, retailers have promised just $2.5 million each for fire safety training and inspections, with the cost of any upgrades to be thrashed out between each factory and the retailers.
Determining the most urgent needs may not be easy either. Until two weeks ago, the Dhaka authority had no idea how many factories fell under its jurisdiction, let alone their condition. Islam, the chief engineer, borrowed a membership list from the industry lobby. He was surprised to discover 3,500 or so factories, he said in an interview in his office, sitting under a yellowing, map of Dhaka at least 60 years old.
Mountains of Documents
The surveys were begun independent of the retailers’ accord and are being supplemented by other documents. Factory owners are submitting structural drawings and soil samples to the development authority as well.
To sort through the mountain of paperwork, the authority has sought help from professors at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, said Mohammed Mujibur Rahman, head of the department of civil engineering.
“We are kind of overburdened at this stage, because we have to find time to do this in addition to our academic programme,” Rahman said. “We are trying to prioritise some of the buildings that are reported to be most at risk and are visiting those first.”
A preliminary inspection can take as long as a week. Testing concrete samples, running simulations on models and checking the foundations of buildings can take a month. A 30-member team of structural experts has raced through 100 analyses in two weeks, while hundreds more pile up.
Cracked Walls
Ahmed asks for documents showing the building plans, the engineers who designed the factory and soil samples.
Officials hum and haw, produce some documents and promise to send the rest to his office.
Ahmed tours the factory, walking past piles of green sweatshirts emblazoned with I Heart NY graphics, and stops under a long crack running along the east wall. He looks worried, and repeats his request for the engineer’s name and firm. On the opposite wall, a long crack runs from floor to ceiling.
The windows have metal grills, which means that in a fire, workers wouldn’t be able to jump out, and be forced to use one of three fire exits, two leading to indoor stairwells and one to an external metal staircase. His colleague steps on the metal staircase outside and reaches for balance as it wobbles under his weight.
“Problems, problems, lots of problems,” says Ahmed as he exits the building. “Half the paperwork is missing. The staircase is not safe.”
Union Support
Quick action is needed for the industry, said Kalpona Akter, director of the Bangladesh Centre for Worker Solidarity, a nongovernmental organisation founded by two former child garment workers to promote safer factories.
“There are so many factories that are unsafe, and we need to move faster to ensure the safety of the workers,” she said in an interview in her office in Dhaka. “Workers here have waited too long, and paid with their lives for delays.”
Under the fire and safety accord, whose supporters include Hennes & Mauritz AB (HMB) and Inditex SA (ITX), the two largest clothing retailers, there will be safety inspections and fire safety training at about 2,000 participating factories.
Any upgrade spurred by inspections will be mandatory with the burden resting on the factory owner. Retailers will negotiate “commercial terms with their suppliers which ensure that it is financially feasible,” including joint investments, loans, business incentives or paying directly for renovations, according to the terms of the accord. The deal also requires retailers to continue their orders with the factories for at least two years, ensuring the upgrades are made.
Rana Plaza
Rana Plaza, which collapsed April 24, was one of them. Its construction had been approved by local officials in Savar, and it had not been inspected by Dhaka officials after the 2010 shift, according to interviews with Sheikh Mamman, a member of the planning committee of Rajuk and Islam, the chief engineer at Rajuk.
On this day, Ahmed stands in front of a seven-story building that was redistricted to Dhaka in 2010. It’s actually two adjacent apartment buildings that have been joined at the third floor by putting in concrete slabs and removing walls.
“It was designed as an apartment building, and now it’s a factory,” he said. “It’s a huge issue.”
The factory, Dica Tex Ltd., makes clothes for a few European brands, including infant clothing for Dimo Tex, and t-shirts for Fashion Point and Camel Active, according to labels on clothing seen by Bloomberg News. The two German companies, Dimo Tex, based in Wenden, and Camel Active, didn’t respond to messages, nor did Fashion Point, which is based in Istanbul. A box containing a single fire blanket hangs by a fire extinguisher near the entrance to each floor, with a warning that the fire blanket is not meant for adults.
One Day’s Work
The owner, Muhammed Mushoraf, declined to comment when contacted later on his cell phone. Dirk Huette, identified by a factory manager as the managing director of the company, did not return calls to his cell phone. A director of the company, Abu Ansab Rubel, did not return calls either.
Ahmed makes copious notes in a small, black notebook. He asks for photocopies of the building plan, which still show a residential design, with bedrooms, kitchens, living rooms and verandas.
He walks around the building, shaking his head, as darkness settles. It’s time to return to Dhaka, more than two hours away in traffic. Workers gather at the grilled windows of the onetime apartment building. Ahmed waves from the truck and drives off.
Four factories down, some 3,200 left to go.
