15 January, 2014The technical team of the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, signed between IndustriALL, UNI Global Union and more than 120 global garment companies, has finalized the standards to be used for factory inspections.
The standards cover fire, electrical, and building safety and all factories producing for Accord signatory brands will be inspected for compliance against them.
The standards are largely based on the Bangladesh National Building Code and are the product of discussions facilitated by the ILO between the Accord, the National Tripartite Plan of Action, and the Alliance of North American companies which did not join the Accord. Additional discussions took place between Accord and Alliance engineers resulting in a standard which is substantively the same.
The Accord is committed to inspect 1500 factories by September 2014 for fire, electrical, and building safety. Results of the inspections and information on necessary remediation will be published on the Accord website.