Fire Safety and Health Implementation Management System for Garments

About This Course

The ready-made-garment sector in Bangladesh has expanded greatly over the past five years. Whilst exports have grown, there remains a lack of general understanding and awareness of compliance, and how to meet the demands of retailers. Despite willingness by factory managers to learn and apply good systems, some factory owners remain reluctant as not all their retail customers insist on adherence to a code of compliance; and for those that do, standards and codes vary.

The costs of compliance can pay for themselves over time, but the initial costs can be off-putting. Factory managers cited fire safety equipment, structural changes and reorganization of production facilities as the main costs incurred. Structural changes in particular are a significant obstacle ** a large number of factories in Bangladesh are either rented and / or were not purpose-built manufacturing sites therefore making structural changes to ensure fire safety compliance can be difficult.

The accumulation of recent incidents in Bangladesh causing more deaths and injuries proves the urgency of the outstanding demand for immediate and structural safety measures. Recently some organization observed fire safety International Action Day is a day to push all factory owners in Bangladesh, all companies sourcing production in Bangladesh, industry associations and public authorities to take action on this demand. It is an action day in solidarity with the garment workers in Bangladesh who want a safe and healthy workplace.

In the garment industry, most deaths from fire are due to the inhalation of smoke or from workers falling to their death from multistory factories as they try to escape. Tragically there have been a number of garment factory fires in which large numbers of workers have died. Some of these tragedies have reached the national and international press and the poor publicity has impacted on the Brands as they try to maintain their market share. As a result, the compliance officers who monitor the Brands` Code of Conduct are looking closely at the whole issue of fire safety. In Bangladesh, although there is a national Fire Department along with fire safety laws and rules, which has the authority to deal with fire safety, it appears at the present time that they do not have national standards or benchmarks to guide their work in the garment industries.