The European Parliament urged Bangladesh on Wednesday 14 June to step up its efforts to prevent the exploitation of the country’s textile workers. Although noting moderate improvement in safety at work, Parliament bemoans the delays on workers’ rights.
The Sustainability Compact, involving the EU, the United States, Canada (which joined the initiative in 2016) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO), was launched in the summer of 2013 following the collapse of the Rana Plaza textile factory in Dhaka on 24 April 2013, killing 1,135 people. It has resulted in moderate improvements in workplace safety, but respect for workers’ rights is lagging behind, Parliament notes in a resolution adopted by a show of hands.
Among a raft of measures, Parliament calls on the Bangladeshi authorities to swiftly amend the 2013 labour act so as to ensure freedom of association and collective bargaining, and to recruit more factory inspectors.
In addition, Parliament says the mandate of the ACCORD, a platform which includes EU companies that help to implement the Compact, should be renewed after its expiry in May 2018 and it urges international brands to take their corporate social responsibility (CSR) policy more seriously to ensure decent working conditions.
Lastly, Parliament calls on the Commission to table an EU-wide legislative initiative on a due diligence system for the garment sector.
“Despite some progress in recent years, the situation on the ground remains worrisome. We are very concerned about the lack of meaningful progress in implementing the commitments of the Sustainability Compact by Bangladesh”, said the chair of the Parliament’s international trade committee Bernd Lange (S&D, Germany). “Countries, which disrespect fundamental rights at work, should not be encouraged by benefitting from unrestricted access to our market. The government of Bangladesh will need to demonstrate that it is willing and able to deliver on its own promises and the demands of the international community”, he stated.
The EU, in its trade policy, demands that “our trading partners respect core principles in the areas of human, labour and environmental rights. I have done all I can as chair of the INTA Monitoring Group for South Asia to get Bangladesh to comply. It seems they are not listening. We cannot keep issuing appeals and statements every year – we have to see tangible results on the ground for privileged market access to be continued”, warned Sajjad Karim (ECR, UK).
At the third monitoring meeting of the Sustainability Compact in Dhaka on 18 May, the partners in the Compact for the garment sector in Bangladesh, welcomed the progress made on making the workplace safer and on procedures for registering trade unions but they called for more to be done on workers’ rights (see EUROPE 11793). (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)