Siddiqur Rahman, BGMEA President points out managing low cost fund for factory owners to complete remediation works to turn the RMG sector full-fledged compliant is his main task. Workers safety has been identified by the retailers’ platforms, Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety, and Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh. Thus, his priority to make the sector safe for workers.
Rahman argues some factories have closed down because of safety inspections by the Accord and Alliance. These factories need relocation. The factory owners are not getting approval of new buildings to establish units in Detailed Area Plan as it is too wide. Thus, Rahman is trying to get the approval of the plan to establish RMG factories to ensure relocation to make the sector compliant. And, to shape the RMG industry in a modern and compliant manner, Rahman’s ultimate goal is the implementation of Bausia Garment Palli.
As far as workers’ rights are concerned, Rahman says, since Bangladesh is an ILO-ratified country, if a factory owner runs it according to rules and ensures all workers’ rights, there is no need to form a trade union forcibly. However, if workers think that their rights are not established, they can form a trade union to bargain as per the laws.
To increase and improve productivity, the BGMEA has introduced Center of Excellence for Bangladesh Apparel Industry (CEBAI), for research and development. Rahman believes if the industry uses state-of-art machinery, information technology and hire trained human resource management team, productivity will rise automatically.
