DHAKA: The clothing retailer River Island is under increasing pressure to sign a factory safety deal in Bangladesh set up in the wake of the Rana Plaza disaster after its rival Arcadia thinned the ranks of refuseniks by backing the accord.

The Global Poverty Project is calling on its 30,000 British members to write to River Island after Arcadia, the owner of Topshop, finally signed up to the international deal on Friday, nearly five months after 1,129 people died when the Rana Plaza factory building near Dhaka collapsed.

As the fashion world descends on London for this season’s catwalk shows, Arcadia joins more than 50 brands which have signed up to the legally binding building safety agreement, pledging to contribute up to $500,000 (325,000) a year towards rigorous independent factory inspections and the installation of fire safety measures.

River Island said it agreed with the “principle and intent” of the accord but still had queries to clear up. The company said in a statement: “River Island is committed to ensuring safe conditions for those working in the factories which supply our products. We have good and long-term relationships with all of our suppliers in Bangladesh and the team has recently visited every one of the factories that we use in the region.”

Those yet to sign, which include Peacocks owner Edinburgh Woollen Mill and Matalan, are coming under increasing pressure from campaign groups including the Trades Union Congress which gave a platform to the Bangladeshi union leader Amirul Haque Amin at its annual conference last Monday.

Amin is in the UK this week pushing for better wages for the millions of workers in Bangladesh’s clothing factories and full compensation for those affected in the Rana Plaza disaster and an earlier fire at the Tazreen clothing factory, where 110 people died. This week nine brands which were linked to the Rana Plaza building, including Britain’s Matalan, Primark and Bonmarch, met in Geneva for talks with unions and workers’ rights campaigners about long-term compensation for the victims and their families.

The international union IndustriALL has called for brands to contribute $33.5mn to those injured and the families of those who died in the accident with a further $41mn to come from the Bangladeshi government and factory owners. While all the brands which met in Geneva said they were prepared to put up at least some cash, no agreement was reached on the structure or scale of compensation, partly because 20 brands which were invited did not attend including Walmart, Mango and the Zara owner, Inditex.

Samantha Maher of campaign group Labour Behind the Label, who attended the talks, said: “It is almost six months since Rana Plaza collapsed. After all the hand-wringing, workers are still facing a life of desperation when half of those brands whose products they were making have turned their back on them.”

Inditex said it did not attend the meeting because it had not sourced clothing from Rana Plaza, while Walmart said its clothes were not being produced there “at the time of the tragedy,” although campaigners have provided evidence that clothes were being made for the US retailer at Rana Plaza about a year before it collapsed.

Primark, which has led action to organise compensation for victims, has promised a second round of short-term financial assistance to more than 3,000 workers and their families who were involved in the disaster as talks continue about longer-term payouts.

It has pledged this short-term help to all those linked to Rana Plaza while it registers and assesses the level of injuries suffered by those working for its supplier New Wave.

Katharine Kirk, its ethical trading director, said Primark was continuing to work towards its own long-term compensation scheme and would make those payouts when it was ready even if a wider agreement did not emerge.  Kirk said: “At the moment this is the best option on the table and we are not going to sit around and wait for something else that may never come.”

Maher said that Primark’s proactive approach should put pressure on other brands to step forward. If they did not step up, she said some workers would be left without long-term financial help because “they happened to be working for a brand that doesn’t care.”

Source: gulf-times
BDST: 1418 HRS, SEP 16, 2013
AKA/BSK