Readymade garment factory owners in Bangladesh have alleged that the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, a consortium of North American retailers, is incorporating additional corrective action plan to factories during its follow-up inspection. They feel this may hamper the smooth progress of the remediation process. Factory owners say Alliance is making never-ending inspection visits.

Alliance has assured garment factory owners that the final inspection Alliance declared factories compliant or noncompliant is based on the implementation of corrective action plans on initial findings. It says it is giving follow-up findings to some factories to help owners to ensure safer working conditions in their establishments but the progress of follow-up corrective actions will not be considered during the final inspection.

After the Rana Plaza building collapse in April 2013 that killed more than 1,100 people, mostly garment workers, North American retailers formed the Alliance for Bangladesh Workers Safety. The initiative launched in Bangladesh readymade garment factories from where their members procure products and completed their primary safety assessments in their listed 600 factories. The retailers’ group targets completing final inspection by July 2017.