‘WE WON!!! Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) is delighted to announce a major campaign victory with the confirmation that the Rana Plaza Donors Trust Fund has finally met its target of $30 million, following a large anonymous donation.’
The CCC said on Tuesday that it has been campaigning since the disaster in April 2013 to demand that brands and retailers provide compensation to its victims. Since then over one million consumers from across Europe and around the world have joined actions against many of the major high street companies whose products were being made in one of the five factories housed in the structurally compromised building.
These actions forced many brands to finally pay donations and by the second anniversary the Fund was still $2.4 million dollars short of its $30million target. A large donation received by the Fund in the last few days has now led to the Fund meeting its target. This day has been long in coming,’ said Ineke Zeldenrust of the Clean Clothes Campaign.
‘Now that all the families impacted by this disaster will finally receive all the money that they are owed, they can finally focus on rebuilding their lives. This is a remarkable moment for justice. This would not have been possible without the support of citizens and consumers across Europe who stuck with the campaign over the past two years. Together we have proved once again that European consumers do care about the workers who make their clothes – and that their actions really can make a difference.’
The Rana Plaza Donors Trust Fund was set up by the ILO in January 2014 to collect funds to pay awards designed to cover loss of income and medical costs suffered by the Rana Plaza victims and their families when the Rana Plaza building collapsed in the garment industry’s worst ever disaster.
In November 2014, the Rana Plaza Coordination Committee announced that it would need around $30million to pay in full over 5,000 awards granted through the scheme. However, the failure of brands and retailers linked to Rana Plaza to provide sufficient and timely donations into the Fund has, until today, prevented the payment of the awards from being completed.
The Clean Clothes Campaign will continue to support the Rana Plaza victims who are pursuing further payments in recognition of the pain and suffering inflicted upon them as a result of corporate and institutional negligence. These payments fall outside the scope of the Arrangement. The CCC also calls for policy changes to ensure that those affected by future disasters will receive more timely support.
They welcome a new initiative by the ILO in Bangladesh to develop a national workplace injury scheme for the country’s four million garment workers. They also urge European politicians to develop better regulation of supply chains to ensure that brands and retailers are held properly accountable in the future.
‘This is a huge victory – but it’s been too long in the making,’ said Ineke Zeldenrust from CCC. That brands with a collective annual profit of over $20 billions took two years and significant public pressure to come up with a mere $30 million is an indictment of the voluntary nature of social responsibility.
‘We now need to look at ways to ensure that access to such remedy is provided by brands and retailers as a matter of course, and not only when public outrage makes doing nothing impossible.’
International Labour Organisation (ILO) Director-General Guy Ryders said he was encouraged by the action taken by the Government of Bangladesh, the country’s employers, workers, international brands, trade unions and NGOs on the Committee to ensure that fair compensation can now be paid to all victims of this terrible tragedy. He said: ‘This is a milestone but we still have important business to deal with.
‘We must now work together to ensure that accidents can be prevented in the future, and that a robust national employment injury insurance scheme is established so that victims of any future accidents will be swiftly and justly compensated and cared for.’
The ILO has acted as chair of the Rana Plaza Coordination Committee since its establishment in October 2013. It has supported the Committee to design one coordinated arrangement for all victims of the accident based on ILO Conventions. In January 2014, the ILO also established the Rana Plaza Donor Trust Fund to support the Committee’s effort to finance the scheme.
Bangladesh does not yet have a national employment injury insurance scheme to protect victims of accidents at work although ILO is now working with the Government, employers’ and workers’ organisations, donors and industry partners to establish one.
In this context the full implementation of the Rana Plaza Arrangement within a two-year period will represent a very significant step forward. IndustriALL Global Union General Secretary Jyrki Raina said: ‘This compensation scheme is groundbreaking for industrial accidents in the garment supply chain, but the lack of responsibility by the brands towards the workers who make their clothes has been only too apparent.
‘Meanwhile the fight continues for a living wage and the right to be a member of a trade union. These struggles are fundamental to changing the conditions in garment factories so that tragedies like Rana Plaza will never happen again.’
UNI Global Union General Secretary Philip Jennings said: ‘The compensation fund shows that global unions and NGOs can work with international brands to ensure they live up to their responsibilities along the supply chain. This is a positive day in a tortuous saga for the survivors and the families of the victims.
‘Two years is way too long for multi-billion dollar companies to come up collectively with $30 million USD, but we’ve got there in the end and the families can now start to rebuild their lives. However, let’s not forget Bangladesh still has a long way to go to create a safe and sustainable garment industry.’
The TUC welcomed the announcement that full compensation can be paid to the victims of the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in 2013, which killed almost 1,200 workers. The TUC said it supports the commitment by G7 leaders in their statement today to establish a ‘Vision Zero’ insurance fund to provide compensation for workers harmed in future industrial accidents. ”To be effective such a fund will need to involve binding commitments on companies, as well as active support from governments,’ said the TUC.
TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: ‘The calls that trade unions and campaigners around the world have been making for compensation to be paid to victims of Rana Plaza since 2013 have finally been heard. But two years is too long for any worker to wait for medical attention and too long for a family to wait for food, clothing and other essentials. Never has it been clearer that voluntary processes do not work. Governments must make sure there are binding commitments on multinational companies to compensate workers harmed in their global supply chains.’
On Monday 1st June, police in Bangladesh filed the first formal murder charges against dozens of individuals over the 2013 collapse of Rana Plaza. The collapse of the factory, built on swampy ground outside the capital, Dhaka, ranks amongst the world’s worst industrial accidents, and sparked an outcry for greater safety in the world’s second-largest exporter of ready-made garments.
In all, 42 people were charged over the disaster, a rare step in a country where critics complain that powerful garment industry bosses often go unpunished for factory accidents.
‘We pressed charges against 42 people, including owner Sohel Rana, in two cases filed over the building collapse,’ said lead investigator Bijoy Krishna Kar, adding that one case was for murder and the other over a breach in construction rules. The police report called the deaths a ‘mass killing’. About 2,500 people were injured in the disaster. If convicted of murder, the defendants could face the death penalty.
About four million people work in Bangladesh’s garment industry, some earning as little as $38 a month. The sector helps Bangladesh earn more than $20 billion a year from exports, mainly to the United States and Europe. Kar, who submitted the charges to a court in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, said a hearing would take place on June 28 to decide on further proceedings.
In a separate case, the accused will also face charges of violating safety rules in building Rana Plaza because additional floors were added to the original five-story building, which was actually meant for offices and shopping malls. Later, illegally built upper floors were transformed into factories.
Rana was arrested after a four-day hunt shortly after the April 2013 building collapse, apparently trying to flee across the border to neighbouring India.
