Lessons from that Day / Rana Plaza @ 10 / PART IV Interview

Spotlight: Rana Plaza @ 10

Till Rana Plaza, Structural Safety Risks Were Not Fully Known

The Bangladesh textiles industry before and after the Rana Plaza disaster is a different story. While earlier the focus was on capacity building of management teams on productivity, quality, and HR systems aimed at worker welfare, after the mishap the highlight was that the responsibility of making a factory safe does not rest with only the safety or compliance officer. Dr Rajesh Bheda, CEO and Managing Director, Rajesh Bheda Consulting, shares with texfash.com his observations.

Richa Bansal

27 April 2023

7 minutes

Long Story, Cut Short

Till Rana Plaza disaster, structural safety risks were not fully known or the disastrous possible consequences to human lives were not fully understood.
The slump in global demand for apparel has been a concern that has reduced the growth rate of the industry to a certain extent & currently many factories have large idle capacity.
Workers’ wages will go up as a result of upcoming tripartite agreement but Bangladesh has a reasonably well structured mechanism for it.

The defining moment towards improving safety standards was the signing of ‘Accord for Fire and Building Safety’ and ‘Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety’. Teams put together under the Accord and Alliance were mandated to carry out the safety assessments.

Defining moment The defining moment towards improving safety standards was the signing of ‘Accord for Fire and Building Safety’ and ‘Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety’. Teams put together under the Accord and Alliance were mandated to carry out the safety assessments. Rajesh Bheda Consulting

Today, many organisations--both private and non-governmental--work in Bangladesh, particularly in its readymade garments (RMG) sector. Guragain-headquartered Rajesh Bheda Consulting Pvt Ltd (RBC) is one of those few ones which had its feet on ground zero much before the Rana Plaza disaster left the world in a state of stupor and disbelief.

RBC is a management consulting firm focused on enhancing competitiveness of fashion and lifestyle industry organisations. The best names in the fashion business internationally have been partnering with RBC to promote performance improvement strategies in their organisations and supply chains. These include leading apparel manufacturers, sourcing companies, brands and retailers, industry associations, government and UN Agencies The consulting interventions of RBC have resulted in significant performance enhancement among over 300 organisations internationally.

One of the key areas that RBC has focused on in Bangladesh is OHS (occupational health and safety) issues, something that lies at the core of the Rana Plaza tragedy.

texfash.com: You have been consulting in Bangladesh since 2007. What are the major changes that the textiles-apparel-fashion industry has been witness to before and after the Rana Plaza disaster? What, according to you, has been the most striking difference?
Rajesh Bheda: The Rana Plaza disaster was a huge shock and an immense, almost unbelievable, human tragedy. It gave a jolt to collective conscience of the people, not only in Bangladesh but across the world, specially the apparel world. It brought building safety under sharp focus for all stakeholders including garment factory owners, international brands, industry associations BGMEA (Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association) and BKMEA (Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association), government agencies, civil society, worker organisations and workers.

Though, fire safety was recognised as a risk due to the Tazreen factory fire and other smaller incidences earlier, till the Rana Plaza disaster, structural safety risks were not fully known or the disastrous possible consequences to human lives were not fully understood. There was also very little capacity in the country to undertake wide spread building safety assessment and develop remedial plans.

The defining moment towards improving the safety standards was the signing of ‘Accord for Fire and Building Safety’ and ‘Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety’. Teams put together under the Accord and Alliance were mandated to carry out the safety assessments. Under these agreements, major international buyers agreed to contribute towards factory inspections of about 2,500 factories. The inspections identified corrective actions factory owners needed to undertake, at their expense.

Corrective action plan implementations were evaluated, and factories were certified for safety. This can be recognised as one of the largest coordinated efforts by diverse stakeholders to improve the factory safety standards in any country in recent history. If you look at any new building around Greater Dhaka, the improved construction standards are clearly visible.

Richa Bansal

RICHA BANSAL has more than 30 years of media industry experience, of which the last 20 years have been with leading fashion magazines in both B2B and B2C domains. Her areas of interest are traditional textiles and fabrics, retail operations, case studies, branding stories, and interview-driven features.

See Full Bio

After the disaster, most enterprises were absolutely clear that they needed to improve the safety standards to protect the workers, business and the reputation of the industry of the country. Along with the pain and anguish came the strong resolve to address the challenge of safety. This ensured interest in availing the training, introducing safety protocols and undertaking structural changes as needed, installation of fire doors or sprinkling systems.

Safety Standards After the disaster, most enterprises were absolutely clear that they needed to improve the safety standards to protect the workers, business and the reputation of the industry of the country. Along with the pain and anguish came the strong resolve to address the challenge of safety. This ensured interest in availing the training, introducing safety protocols and undertaking structural changes as needed, installation of fire doors or sprinkling systems. Rajesh Bheda Consulting

You were already working with Bangladeshi enterprises when disaster struck. The disaster meant that things would have to change in many ways? What did you, at your end, do to reformulate your training programmes, etc? What's important is how amenable were enterprises to change? Did they take like fish to water? Or, were they unsure? What attitude shifts have you personally noticed since April 2013?
Rajesh Bheda: We, along with our partners, were focussing mainly on capacity building of management teams on productivity, quality, and HR systems aimed at worker welfare before the Rana Plaza disaster. After the disaster, we added OHS to our training content so that all the managers could get exposure to the key principles of OHS, and understand that the responsibility of making the factory safe does not rest with only the safety officer or compliance officer.

After the disaster, most enterprises were absolutely clear that they needed to improve the safety standards to protect the workers, business and the reputation of the industry of the country. Along with the pain and anguish came the strong resolve to address the challenge of safety. This ensured interest in availing the training, introducing safety protocols and undertaking structural changes as needed, installation of fire doors or sprinkling systems. Many factories found the investments needed for implementation of remedial measures for building and fire safety to be prohibitively expensive. Various financing options were also worked out to support the factories.

We also worked with our partner organisations SEEDS, on ‘productive safety’ programmes supported by a few international brands and their sourcing partners. The factories were educated on the risks of multiple hazards including the potential emergencies like fire, earthquakes, urban flooding, etc. We supported some of the factories in developing disaster management plans, develop SOPs, set up emergency control rooms and improve safety communication. Workers were at the core of our programme. We focussed on involving them in risk assessment of their immediate surroundings, thus, creating timely alert mechanisms to detect risks at initial stage itself, so that, remedial measures can be taken in time to avert any untoward incidences.

Workers mindsets certainly changed. Previously, the fire drills were not taken so seriously in some cases as the threat perception among the workers, supervisors and managers was low. But it became abundantly clear that safety is not to be taken lightly. There were huge efforts by industry associations, government agencies and international brands to increase the awareness that certainly helped improving the skills of the workers on how to respond to emergencies.

Rajesh Bheda

CEO and Managing Director

Rajesh Bheda Consulting

The immediate days after the disaster were days of chaos. What was your counsel to businesses that you were working with? Was it a watershed moment in which everyone wants to change? More importantly, what were the changes in worker mindsets that you noticed? Did safety issues become paramount? Or, was your work more to revolve around skilling, etc?
Rajesh Bheda: Workers mindsets certainly changed. Previously, the fire drills were not taken so seriously in some cases as the threat perception among the workers, supervisors and managers was low. But it became abundantly clear that safety is not to be taken lightly. There were huge efforts by industry associations, government agencies and international brands to increase the awareness that certainly helped improving the skills of the workers on how to respond to emergencies.

Will be good if you could share some personal experiences from the field as you interacted with industry leaders and their teams. Any incident that left a mark? One that you would want to really share?
Rajesh Bheda: One experience that comes to our memory was as follows. When we (RBC and SEEDS) did the detailed risk assessment for a factory, we realised that next to the factory wall was a school. If any emergency occurred in the factory the school and the nearby community would also get affected. Hence, in the fire safety plan, the school was also included. Our team went and interacted with the principal and teachers. They were highly interested and pleasantly surprised to see the interest of the factory management and safety experts in the wellbeing and disaster risk reduction of the nearby community. The students and teachers also took part in fire drill with a lot of enthusiasm.

Another experience is about the need for promoting the use of PPE (personal protective equipmen). The managing director of the factory himself wore the PPE and demonstrated the right use of it. It improved the effectiveness of the safety communication and importance of PPE.

Bangladesh has made stellar progress towards improving the building safety and investing in creation of certified green factories. There are numerous initiatives under way aimed at improving social standards and worker welfare.

Stellar Progress Bangladesh has made stellar progress towards improving the building safety and investing in creation of certified green factories. There are numerous initiatives under way aimed at improving social standards and worker welfare. Rajesh Bheda Consulting

Given that the entire state machinery supports the textile-apparel-fashion industry, given the fact that it is a major revenue earner for the country, and given the fact that it is into exports majorly, why do you think it took a Rana Plaza to jolt all into better working conditions, fair wages and the like? It is not like that the brands that were sourcing from here were not entirely aware of the working conditions?
Rajesh Bheda: When an industry grows organically over a couple of decades in any country, ushering change is not easy and takes time as there are old factories that were built in initial years of industry creation. Many of these can be in residential areas or very close to residential areas. Many of them can be mixed-use buildings. Access to factories may be too narrow. As the realisation for the improvement sets in, new factories are built with better standards, but old factories are seldom rebuilt from scratch or stopped being used for manufacturing.

When the industry grows at a rapid pace resulting in the need for growing production capacity, the factories with low safety standards start/continue to receive subcontract orders to meet peak demand of production. In such cases the safety concerns are often ignored or underestimated. And it seems, not many could visualise the imminent threat of this catastrophic magnitude.

The workers are again protesting of late for a hike in wages. Workers are demanding that wages be increased from BDT8,000 (US$75) to BDT23,000 (US$215). Bangladesh is a favourable sourcing destination because of the low cost of wages, with a lot of the business diverted towards it post-Covid. What is the reality on the ground as the country strives to hold on to its position?
Rajesh Bheda: The country has made stellar progress towards improving the building safety and investing in creation of certified green factories. There are numerous initiatives under way aimed at improving social standards and worker welfare. International buyers and institutions have put on record their appreciation of the improvements achieved by the industry, and thus we see Bangladesh to be in good position to retain its leadership position in garment exports.

The wages will go up as a result of upcoming tripartite agreement, but Bangladesh has a reasonably well-structured mechanism for it. The slump in global demand for apparel has been a concern that has reduced the growth rate of the industry to a certain extent and currently many factories have large idle capacity. However, it is hoped that demand should pick up in next 3–6 months.