A Study on Social Compliance

Social Compliance by Mohammad Hasan

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
At first, I take this opportunity to express my heartiest gratitude to my department, Public
Administration for considering me eligible for the current research. My heart-felt gratitude to my
supervisor Professor Aka Firowz Ahmad who himself shares a strong passion in the field I am
interested in. I thank him from the bottom of my heart for his endless support in all aspects.
Without his consistent support, my venture to undertake the current research work would not
have seen the light. My head bows down before my teacher and guide, Chairman of the
department, Professor Akhter Hussain, who always encourages his students to take challenge and
to lead a life with dignity and integrity. He is the person behind my success in my present
profession. I am also indebted to Professor Mobasser Monem who helped me, even with his busy
schedule, to prepare my research proposal with specific focus on the subject matter.
I am also grateful to the board of directors, Babylon Group who allowed me to enroll for the
current research work; a very special and heart-felt gratitude to Mr. S.M. Emdadul Islam who
always encourages people to quench their strong thirst for knowledge.  I also remember and
warmly acknowledge the cordial cooperation of my colleagues from the Human Resources and
Compliance department, who have cooperated whole heartedly in my endeavor to make it a
success. My special thanks go to both the associations; BGMEA and BKMEA, for issuing letters
in my favor to their member factories to extend their full cooperation for my research. I also
thank the leaders of workers’ federation, factory owners, factory in-charges, compliance heads,
concerned government officials and officials of the international agencies and the workers and
employees, who candidly shared their working experiences, their sorrows and happiness with a
hope to see the kind of working place they have dreamed of.

Finally, I would like to dedicate this paper to my son Ishraq Hasan, daughter Samiha Tasnim and
their mother Shahnaz  Hasan, who inspired and supported me in every phase till the end of this
journey.

Mohammad Hasan

January 2017

Abstract
Social compliance has become one of the most distinctive features of Readymade Garments
(RMG) industry in Bangladesh during the last decade. Along with socioeconomic conditions of
Bangladesh, different initiatives of the governments in different terms and international policy
support together have helped this industry to achieve an enviable growth. The first generation
entrepreneurs have earned the buyers’ satisfaction on price, quality and delivery but have
repeatedly failed in “a set of standards” which terms as social compliance of this business. The
current research has focused on social compliance issues in RMG, focusing on Ashulia industrial
area, to know the strategies of social compliance in RMG, and to address this issue with an in-
depth analysis. The present study has applied mixed research methodology, i.e. using primary
and secondary data for analysis, and other discretely devised methods for the research to find out
the root causes of failure to meet those standards. The primary data was collected dividing the
respondents in two different groups; one- comprising the workers and the other – comprising the
decision makers of government, buyers and owners in this sector. Data were collected from
Ashulia the main focus area, while literatures from secondary sources were reviewed in details to
give insights into relevant issues. The RMG sector of Bangladesh had an unplanned growth due
to the diminishing jute industry which used to be the backbone of economy in the past. The push
factor from the jute industry and the pull factor of the then emerging RMG sector could balance
the unemployment of the workers. The major findings of the study, according to the analytical
framework drawn, among the three indicators of the social compliance two, business growth and
brand value, were found at satisfactory level but the most important factor “worker’s
satisfaction” was very poor. It was found that multiple authorities govern this sector, while the
social compliance issues are heavily buyer-driven. Although this sector employs millions of
workers; fails to ensure workers satisfaction. This sector repeatedly fails to ensure good working
environment because of a number of factors that include weak government regulations, profit-
maximization attitude of the owners, and lack of proper implementation of labor law. 
Implementation of labor rights and acceptable working conditions will not be possible until and
unless the country adopts specific policies with the host country’s socioeconomic perspective.
For effective governance a common checklist against unified codes of conduct under a single
authority is a must. Till now the government has played only passive role and had an attitude of
let the sector grow for employment opportunity, overlooking the importance of compliance. The
sector itself has been trying to comply with the buyers and international community in
compliance issues. But day by day the situation in context of the country is becoming difficult to
comply with the international rules, regulations as every country has a different culture and
different socio economic condition. It is not possible for the RMG sector without the help of the
government authority to deal with these complexities. The government needs to take special care
of this industry for a sustainable growth.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter I   

Introduction  

Background of the Study 1

Statement of the Problem 4

Literature Review 6

Research Questions 12

Objectives of the Study 13

Significance of the Study 13

To formulate an effective and realistic policy on social compliance 15

To develop a comprehensive guideline on social compliance 15

Will initiate further researches 15

To find the solutions of the problem 15

Scope and Limitations of the Study 16

Research Methodology 17

Sources of Data 18

Sampling 18

Data Processing 19

Strategies Applied for Data Collection and Validation 20

Organization of the Thesis 20

Chapter II  

Theoretical Framework: Social Compliance  

Introduction 22

The concepts of Compliance and Social compliance 23

Evolution of Social Compliance 24

The End of Feudalism (1500 – 1861) 24

The Industrial Revolution (1760 – 1840) 25

The French Revolution (1789 – 1799) 26

Utopian Socialism (First Quarter of the 19th Century) 26

American Civil War (1861 – 1865) 27

International Labour Day, 1886 27

International Labour Organization (ILO), 1919 28

United Nations’ Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR), 1948 28

Globalization and Revolution of Information Technology 29

Anti-Sweatshop and Clean Cloth Campaign (CCC) 29

Formulation of Social Code of Conduct 30

Social Compliance in RMG Sector 31

The Apparel Industry Partnership (AIP) Initiative 32

Social Compliance – Its Criteria, Types and Cycle 33

Three Essential Criteria in Social Compliance 34

i) It’s an obligation – Legal and contractual. 34

ii) It has a verifiable process – Audit system 34

iii) It has improvement scope – Corrective Action Plan (CAP) 34

Types of Compliance 35

i. Legal and Ethical compliance 35

ii. Technical Compliance 35

iii. Security Compliance 35

iv) Environmental Compliance 36

v) Fire and Building safety compliance 36

Compliance Cycle 36

A. Principles of Social Compliance 36

B. Implementation 37

C. Verification 37

D. Corrective Action Plan (CAP) 37

E. Continual Improvement 37

Analytical Framework of Social Compliance 38

Legal Framework 39

Buyers’ Codes of Conduct 39

Stakeholders’ Pressure 40

Environment – Internal and External 40

– Internal Environment 40

i) Management system 40

ii) Workers behavior 40

iii) Owner’s attitude 41

iv) Organizational culture 41

v) Norms and values 41

– External Environment 41

i) Infrastructure 41

ii) Political stability 41

iii) Socio-economic condition 41

iv) Competition 42

v) Demand 42

Feedback 42

Conclusion 42

Chapter III  

Readymade Garment (RMG) Industry in Bangladesh  

Introduction 44

Factors Influencing the Growth of RMG Industries in Bangladesh 45

Socio-Economic Condition 45

Cheap and Abundance Labour Forces 46

The Individuals behind the Growth 47

Mr. M. Noorul Quader Khan 47

Mr. Lutfor Rahman Sarkar 48

Mr. Kihak Sung 49

Role of the Organizations 49

Industry Friendly National Policies 49

i. Denationalization 50

ii. Export Processing Zone (EPZ) 50

iii. Special Bonded Warehouse (SBW) Facility 51

iv. Back To Back L/C 51

v. Cash Incentives 51

Favourable International Policies 52

i) Quota on Export Quantity 53

ii) Preferential Market Access 54

The Governance of RMG Sector 55

Relevant Laws, Rules and Standards for Garments Industry 55

Growth of RMG Sector in Bangladesh 57

Market share of Bangladesh in Global RMG Export 57

Product Diversification 58

Different Phases of the Growth 59

Phase 1: Pre-RMG Scenario 59

Phase 2: First Wave, 1979 60

Phase 3: Emergence of RMG & Growth stage 1980 – 1990 61

Phase 4: Mushrooming 1990 – 2000 61

Phase 5: Maturity stage & Diversification 2001 – 2010 61

Phase 6: Paradigm Shift after Rana Plaza Disaster 61

i)  Dormitory for Female Garment Workers at Ashulia 63

ii) RMG Park at Baushia, Gajaria, Munshigonj 63

iii) The Center of Excellence, Ashulia 64

iv) LEED Certification and Introducing Lean 65

v) Vision 2021 and BGMEA’s 50 at 50 Target 65

RMG Factories in Bangladesh:  Types and Sizes 66

RMG Production Processes 69

Subcontract Factories 70

Business Linkage – Backward and Forward 70

i) Backward Linkage 70

ii) Forward Linkage 71

Contribution of RMG Sector in Bangladesh 72

Women Empowerment and Population Control 75

Poverty Alleviation and Savings 76

Development of Privately Owned Bank and Insurance Companies 77

Growth of Associated Industries/Sectors 77

Different Clusters of RMG Industry in Bangladesh 78

i. First Phase Cluster 78

ii. Second Phase Cluster 79

iii. Third Phase Cluster 79

Ashulia Industrial Area 81

Conclusion 83

   

Chapter IV  

Social Compliance in Bangladesh RMG Sector and Its Existing Practices  

Introduction 85

Major Factors Acting behind the Social Compliance Initiative 86

Number of Severe Accidents 86

Abundance of Child Labour 87

Acute Violation of Workers Rights 88

Revolution of Information Technology 88

Social Compliance Initiatives in Bangladesh RMG Sector 89

Child Labour Elimination Program 89

a) Monitoring for a Sustainable Program 90

b) Impact of the Elimination Program 90

Initiatives by ILO, Dhaka 91

i) Training for the Top Management 91

ii) Training for the Mid-Level Management 92

MOU among the Workers, Owners and Government 92

Declaration of Minimum Wage 94

Legal Framework of Social Compliance at Work Place 95

Constitutional Guarantees 96

ILO Conventions Ratified by Bangladesh 96

Third Parties Standards on Social Compliance 97

Buyers Codes of Conduct (CoC) 98

Demand for Legal Reforms and role of the Governments 99

Statutory Framework: Bangladesh Labour Law -2006 100

Institutional Arrangement and Existing Practices 101

The Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE) 102

Department of Labour (DOL) 104

Labour Court and Labour Appellate Tribunal 104

Minimum Wage Board 105

Social Compliance Forum (SCF) 106

Trade Associations – BGMEA and BKMEA 107

Buyers and Third Parties 108

Social Compliance Audits by different agencies 108

First Party Audit 109

Second Party Audit 109

Third Party Audit 109

Corrective Action Plan (CAP) 112

Multiple Checklists 112

Conclusion 115

   

Chapter V  
Practices of Social Compliance: Field Level Realities  

Introduction 117

Profile and Distribution of Respondents 118

In-depth Interview (IDI) 118

Classification of Respondents by Gender 119

Respondents Grades 120

Span of Service Life 121

Analysis and Evaluation of the Findings 122

The Legal and Policy Framework 123

A. Elimination of All Forms of Forced or Compulsory Labour 123

i) Compulsory work for uninterrupted production 123

ii) Working Hours and Festival Holidays 125

iii) Various incentives offered to keep the workers present 125

iv) Excessive Overtime (EOT) work 126

v)  Extra allowances on Overtime (OT) work 127

vi) Over Time (OT) work is inevitable 128

vii) Weak Supply Chain Management 128

B. Discrimination in Respect of Employment and Occupation 130

i)  Different Laws with varied facilities and benefits 130

ii) Insufficient benefits in the law 131

iii) Fixation of minimum wage 132

iv) Wage discrimination 133

v) Manipulation 134

vi) Position of Women in Higher Management 134

C. Effective Abolition of Child Labour 135

i) Age inconsistencies to determine “Child” by the laws 135

ii) Child versus Adult Ratio 135

iii) Child labour in Compliant and non-compliant Factories 136

iv) Determination of child at RMG factories 137

v) Child labour elimination from RMG sector has increased worst form of child labour 138

vi) Child labour versus Social compliance 139

D. Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining 140

i) Number of unions compared to the size of the sector 140

ii) Workers perception about trade union 141

iii) Federation leaders’ perception about the entrepreneurs 142

iv) Owners’ perception about trade union 142

v) Participatory Committee, a preferred form of workers’ participation 142

vii) Workers’ view on effective Participatory Committee 142

Overburdened and highly centralized DIFE and other service providers 143

i) Multidimensional task by a highly centralized department 144

ii)  The technical functions of DIFE 144

iii) The functions related to health and hygiene 145

iv) Specific Role of the Department can make it Effective 145

The Drawbacks with Apex bodies – BGMEA and BKMEA 146

i) Highly Centralized Associations 147

ii) Lack of Data and information 147

iii) Non-existence of Service book 147

iv) Un-healthy competition among the factories 148

The Drawbacks at Factory Level 148

i) Non-Functional Human Resources Department (HRD) 149

ii) Multi-dimensional task to a single department 149

iii) Highly controlled access to the top management 150

iv) Manipulation of data and Manage culture 150

Social Compliance and Workers Satisfaction 151

i) The factors workers value the most 152

ii) Job Stability by Grades 152

iii) Reasons for workers’ dissatisfaction 154

iv) Workers change the boss not the job 154

v) High Migration 154

Labour Migrations and Workers’ Unrests in the Study Area 156

I. Workers from multi sectors 157

II. A large number of workers with diverse working sectors are living in a small area 157

III. Problems with the garment byproducts 157

IV. Lack of infrastructure 158

V. Absence of effective governing bodies 158

After Rana Plaza 158

i) Workers are always in vulnerable situation 159

ii) Number of trade unions increased 159

iii)  Up-gradation of DIFE 159

iv)  Impact on Entrepreneurs and Workers 160

v)  Shutdown of Small Factories, Capacity enhancement of Large One 160

Problems Identified with the existing system 161

i) Buyers’ Driven Compliance does not ensure workers safety 161

ii) Lack of Core controlling authority, Multiple Guidelines etc 162

iii) Passive role of Government and Apex Bodies 163

iv) Low Price of the Product 164

v) Engagement of Third Parties 165

vi) Major hurdles handling Social Compliance 166

Conclusion 167

   

Chapter VI  

Concluding Remarks  

Recommendations 169

i) Formation of a Separate Ministry 170

ii) Formulation of a National Standard 170

iii) One Audit under a Common Checklist against a Unified Codes’ of Conduct 170

iv) A Functional HR System 170

v) Child labour eradication in an effective manner 171

vi) Ensuring Efficient Supply Chain 172

vii) Ensure Effective Participatory Committee (PC) 172

viii) Cluster Based – School Cum Entertainment Center 173

ix) Skill Development through Technical Training Center 173

x) Academy-Industry Cooperation 173

xi) Branding of Country’s Image 174

Future Research agenda 174

List of Graphs
1.0 Organization of the thesis 18

3.0 Social Compliance and its Shared Benefits 38

3.1 Standard Formulations, Implementation and Verification Process 43

4.1 Classifications of RMG Factories 71

4.2 Factories in Different Product Types 72

4.3 Production Process in RMG Factories 74

4.4 RMG Clusters in Bangladesh Map 85

5.1 Governance System of Social Compliance 107

5.2 Functional Areas of Social Compliance Forum 110

6.1 Respondents by Gender 124

6.2 Respondents by Grade 125

6.3 Respondents’ Experience in RMG Sector 127

6.4 Leave Status of the Respondents, Source: Hasan, M (2015), Field Data 129

6.5 Factors Ensure Workers Presence Regularly 131

6.6 Overtime Works 132

6.7 Reasons of extra time work 134

6.8 Child & Adult Ratio 141

6.9 Average Age of the Children Workers 143

6.10 Federation Membership 146

6.11 Visit Ratio by Different Agencies, Source: Hasan, M (2015), Field Data 152

6.12 Dedicated Departments for Compliance 155

6.13 The Most Manipulated Documents in Compliance 156

6.14 Challenges of Social Compliance 158

6.15 The Important Factors to Workers 159

6.16 Job Stability by Grades 160

6.17 Reasons for Job Dissatisfaction 161

6.18 Workers Migration 162

6.19 Reasons behind Unrests in Ashulia Industrial Area 163

Impacts of Rana Plaza and Tazreen Fashions Accident on RMG Business

6.20 167
Bangladesh

6.21 Expert Opinions on effective compliance 169

6.22 Engagement of Third Parties 174

List of Tables
2.1 Sample size at factory level (Section A + B) 24

2.2 Sample sizes of Respondents for Interview 24

2.3 Research Methodology and Field Study 26

4.1 Relocation of production 52

4.2 Relevant Laws, Rules and Standards for Garments Industry 60

4.3 Ministries/ Departments involved in RMG sector 61

4.4 Bangladesh RMG global market share in different period 62

4.5 Market development scenario during the last ten years 63

4.6 RMG Product development scenario during the last ten years 63

4.7 Different Phases of Growth of RMG sector in Bangladesh 64

4.8 Factories Housed In Rana Plaza 67

4.9 Turning points for the RMG sector, Bangladesh 67

4.10 Sizes of the factories 73

4.11 The number of EPZs, RMG units and its ownership 73

4.12 Tentative breakdown of local retention in Bangladesh woven sector 76

4.13 Comparative analyses of Export value, number of Factories and Employment 77

4.14 An estimated value addition in knit and woven garments in general 79

4.15 Export Share by Products 80

4.16 Social Impact of Employment 80

4.17 Women participation in work among SAARC countries 81

4.18 Poverty Elevation and Savings 82

5.1 Accidents in RMG Sector in Different Times in Bangladesh 91

5.2 The signing of 10-point Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), 2006 97

5.3 Minimum wages in different periods 99

5.4 Different Phases of Social Compliance in Bangladesh RMG Sector 99

5.5 Eight fundamental conventions of ILO 102

5.6 Common third party standards 102

5.7 Core areas of social compliance based on Bangladesh Labor Law -2006 105

5.8 Manpower of the DIFE 108

5.9 Manpower in labor department according to classification 109

5.10 BGMEA and BKMEA membership types and requirements 111

5.11 Types of Social Compliance Audit 115

5.12 Social Compliance Audit Steps 115

5.13 Audit Ratings and Follow-up Schedule (STANDARD Audits) 116

5.14 Audit Ratings and Follow-up 117

5.15 Category Based Grade and Achieved Grade 118

5.16 Grade Wise Member Factories (BGMEA) under Unified Format 118

5.17 Factories of Different Grades 119

5.18 The Number of Cases Received and Resolved 119

6.1 Classification of Respondents for Questionnaire Survey (Sections: A + B) 123

6.2 Classification of Respondents for Interview 123

6.3 Respondent by Gender 124

6.4 Respondents by Grades 125

6.5 Respondents’ Experience in RMG Sector 126

6.6 Leave Status of the Respondents 129

6.7 Factors Ensure Workers Presence Regularly 130

6.8 Overtime Works 131

6.9 Double Rate Payment on Over Time Work 132

6.10 Lead Time – Past and Present 133

6.11 Reasons of Extra time Work 134

6.12 Different rates of incentives in different factories 135

6.13 Minimum wages in different periods. 137

6.14 Minimum Wage within and outside EPZs 138

Discrimination in annual increment and others benefits in the   Minimum Wage

6.15 138
grade 7/ Helper

6.16 Comparison between Male and Female in different positions 139

 6.17 Age inconsistencies to determine “Child” by the laws 140

6.18 Child & Adult Ratio 141

6.19 Child labor in Compliant and non-compliant factory 142

6.20 Average Age of the Children Workers 142

6.21 Workers Membership with Federation 146

6.22 Bio-Metric workers data base 153

6.23 Availability of service book 153

6.24 Dedicated Departments for Compliance 155

6.25 Workers Job Satisfaction 159

6.26 Job Stability by Grades 160

6.27 Workers Migration 162

6.28 Decreasing Small Factories, Increasing Large Size Factories 168

6.29 Experts Opinions on effective compliance 169

6.30 Differences among CM, FOB and Sell Price 173

Abbreviations and Acronyms
5s- Sorting, Straightening, Systematic cleaning, Standardizing, and Sustaining

ATC           – Agreement on Textiles and Clothing

BEPZA       – Bangladesh Export Processing Zone Authority

BGMEA     – Bangladesh Garments Manufacturing Export Association

BKMEA     – Bangladesh Knit Manufacturing Export Association

BSCI           – Business Social Compliance Initiative

BTMA        – Bangladesh Textiles Manufacturing Association

CAD           – Computer Aided Design

CAM          – Computer Aided Machine

CAP            – Corrective Action Plan

C&F           – Cost & Freight

CM             – Cutting & Making

CMT           – Cutting Making Trimming

CoC            – Code of Conduct

CSR            – Corporate Social Responsibility

C-TPAT      – Customs-Trade Partnership against Terrorism

DIFE           – Department of Inspection of Factories and Establishment

ERP            – Enterprise Resource Planning

EPB            – Export Promotion Bureau

EPZ            – Export Processing Zone

FCA            – Free Carrier

FCL            – Full Container Load

FOB            – Free on Board

FOC            – Free of Cost

GATT         – General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

GSCP         – Global Social Compliance Program

GSP            – Generalized System of Preferences

GDP           – Gross Domestic Product

HRD           – Human Resource Department

ISO             – International Organization for Standardization

LCL            – Light Container Load

LDC            – Least Development Country

MFA           – Multi Fibre Arrangement

MFN           – Most Favoured Nation

MRP           – Material Requirements Planning

OBM           – Original Brand Manufacturer

ODM          – Original Design Manufacturer

REACH      – Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and restriction of Chemicals

RMG          – Readymade Garment

RO              – Rules of Origin

SCM           – Supply Chain Management

SMV           – Standard Minute Value

SA8000      – Social Accountability 8000

WRAP        – Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production

WTO          – World Trade Organization

Chapter I – Introduction
Background of the Study
Complying with its past heritage, Bangladesh has become a hub for the Readymade Garment
(RMG) manufacturing industry. During 17th and early 18th century, Bangladesh used to supply
Muslin, a brand name of pre-colonial Bengal textile material, hand woven of uncommonly
delicate handspun yarn, to Europe. In 21st century, the label “Made in Bangladesh” on
readymade garments holds the second position in the world and first in Southeast Asia. The
contribution of this very sector is enviable in terms of export earning, employment generation
and women empowerment. Bangladesh, after its independence, did not experience the dramatic
rate of growth in any other sectors but in RMG. This single sector has created many other
subsectors through direct or indirect business as backward linkages. Readymade garment sector
is called the lifeline of the country’s economy and a catalyst for women empowerment. It is the
highest contributor to the national export of Bangladesh.

In the fiscal year 2013-14 Bangladesh exported total $30.00 billion. RMG sector alone
contributed $24.00 billion i.e. 81.13% out of total national export, (BGMEA, 2014-2015). The
sector employs 4.6 million workforces directly in around 5615 factories; amongst the workforce
80% are women. The sector not only generates employment but also a class of local
entrepreneurs has developed over the period of time. Around 95% of the total employment in the
sector is created by local entrepreneurs (BTI, 2015).  RMG contributes around 16% to the Gross
Domestic Products (GDP). It is the highest foreign currency earning sector. This sector is helping
to increase female literacy, girl’s school enrolment, decreasing child marriage rate, poverty rate.
This sector has successfully eliminated child labour and contributed in lowering child and
maternal mortality rate and empowered women to become decision makers in their families
(BKMEA 2014). With all these earnings, the share of Bangladesh RMG in global apparel market
is around 5% (BKMEA 2015). There is an immense opportunity to increase the present market
share. Bangladesh RMG industry, even after three decades, produces low priced products with
lowest value segment- Cutting, Making and Trimming (CMT) in the global value chain of
apparel businesses.

Apex body, Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) has set
the “vision 2021”and has declared its new target of $ 50 billion export to be reached by 2021, on
the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh along with “Made in Bangladesh with Pride” slogan in it’s
“Dhaka Apparel Summit” (BGMEA, 2014). This vision includes more employment, reducing
poverty, empowering more women, education opportunity for more children, accelerating
economic growth and finally achieving the middle-income status for the country. Though many
have termed this target as “over ambitious” but according to the sector leaders the target will not
be difficult to meet even partly, if good governance, compliance issues and effective supply
chain management are addressed properly.
Generally, the practice of social compliance did not develop within the industry rather the sector
was compelled to comply with the practices of legal and ethical issues, for the sake of its
business continuation. To many first generation entrepreneurs, social compliance was not
considered as worker’s rights and owners’ responsibility rather it was being considered as an
extra pressure on business cost. This sector has achieved tremendous growth without
development of its human resources, supply chain and capacity building. As a result, the benefits
of that geometric growth are bagged by most of the employers where workers are in still
vulnerable position in general. Buyer driven compliance can’t satisfy employee’s needs;
likewise, customer satisfaction cannot be achieved from dissatisfied employees.
The initiative of Social Compliance had begun with the elimination of Child labour from
garment sector as United States prohibited the importation of products that had been produced
abroad with child labour. The buyer’s driven compliance cannot institutionalize the industry on
social compliance ground where workers always remain in vulnerable situation. Here it will be
worth mentioning that even with all those success of eliminating child labour from the industry;
the children under poverty level are still in vulnerable situation. The rate of child marriage and
child labour both are high. Based on a study conducted by the UNICEF, it was found that
Bangladesh has the highest rate of child marriage of girls under the age of 15 years in the world
(HRW, 2015, p-1).

A comprehensive legal guideline was not available for the RMG sector till the end of 2006.
During the time, it had employed 2.4 million workers in its 4490 factories (BGMEA, 2014-15).
Immediately after the enactment of the law the country again experienced military rule that came
to an end through the Ninth National Parliamentary Elections in 2008 with the new government
formation in 2009. Almost for first two decades, till late 90’s, all concentrations were centered to
industrial growth, expansion of production capacity and earnings of more foreign currencies.

Research Problem
Social compliance is an inevitable non-product requirement throughout the business supply
chain. As a labour intensive industry, RMG manufacturing always concentrates on low wage
production countries where having an employment is a big challenge. The objectives of social
compliance include worker’s satisfaction, business growth and brands goodwill. Initially main
focus was to generate and expand income-earning opportunities through labour intensive
industry like RMG. No visible and effective monitoring system were imposed by the
governments and the buyers. Initially there were no compulsive pressure from the buyers and no
regulatory control from the government’s side as well. The other stakeholders – manufacturers,
workers’ leaders, political parties, civil societies or donors did not raise the questions of labour
rights and work place safety. Passive role of the buyers and international agencies, availability of
the workers with strong push factor helped the sector to grow in an unplanned manner. As a
result, the sector grew undisturbed and unregulated without developing any compliance system.

Manufacturers always claim that buyers do not pay fair price of the products, instead demand
high in non-product issues like compliance, keeping uncompromised attitude on product quality
issue. Workers complain if the owners do not make profit then how they are making a “Group of
Companies” in different complexes from a small rented factory building. On the other hand,
buyers argue that if they need to pay more Bangladesh will lose its competitiveness because
other components like lead time is higher here and supply chain is in weaker position than in
other competing countries. From the buyer’s perspective, it is required to assure their customers
that they source the products produced in a place, where all the compliance issues are
maintained. On the other hand, the manufacturer only sees this process as a formal obligation to
secure the business. Government is blamed for its poor and weak governance system to make the
regulatory bodies accountable for ensuring legal rational rights of the workers.

For the good governance, first condition is to assess the needs of the sector to know the actual
size – number of factories, total employment – male female ratio etc. The fact is none of the
regulatory bodies has the actual data of this sector. Non or partial execution of government’s
policy does not help to ensure improved working condition and worker’s rights. Similarly,
buyer-controlled compliance system hardly satisfy the worker’s needs. Paper-based social audit
can issue the certificates of ethical sourcing for buyers but does not ensure worker’s satisfaction
and retention. “Low labour cost in Bangladesh’s garment industry was partly the result of surplus
labour situation in the country, and partly originated from the violation of national and
international labour standards by the garment factory owner’s (Rashid 2006, p.19).

Adequate policy framework along with its effective governance system is important to retain
present market share and obviously to gain potentials from this sector. On the other hand, in the
absence of an effective government regulatory mechanism, diversified and multi-dimensional
approach of social compliance audit system has been developed. Multiple authorities,
government and privates, are working on the same issue – Social Compliance. In the name of
social compliance, it is not expected to do any such rules and regulations those lead the owners
to divert their investment to other sector, the buyers look for alternative destinations and workers
lose their employment. Similarly, compliance is not always about worker’s rights and owners’
responsibilities, contrary the workers have to render some responsibilities as well to ensure
business continuity and growth. In reality, this vital area of responsibility is absent or ignored
most of the times.

According to Herzberg’s theory, improving salary or work environment decreases dissatisfaction

but this does not contribute to the realization of satisfaction or continuous improvement of
satisfaction (Herzberg, 1959, p. 1). Initially, workers were paid nominal wages, now social
compliance initiative ensures minimum wage, but to meet the basic needs they need living wage.
To meet living or fair wage employers argue for fair price of the products and workers’
efficiency, where the buyers and government have important roles to play.

Apart from lack of proper policy support and poor regulatory mechanism, this sector has been
facing many challenges, which are interrelated and interdependent in nature. But these
interdependent issues are not addressed; rather social compliance in the industry is being
considered as an “isolated” condition imposed by the buyers, which makers have to comply. The
present practices of compliance are not to keep the workers in better condition; it is rather to pass
the compliance audits to continue the business. The principles of social compliance are based on
Bangladesh labour law, ILO convention, international best practices and buyer’s codes of
conduct etc. It becomes difficult for any particular sector to apply all those principles irrespective
of countries and situation. Some practices need to be country specific instead of being global
standard. Eradication of adolescent labour from the sector has created an adverse situation to
them rather than protecting their rights (UNICEF and ILO, 2004, P-12).

A policy, a guideline, a law or codes of conduct are not sufficient, no matter how efficiently was
it initiated or formulated, if it is not implemented properly and effectively.

Considering the importance of the problem, an in depth and immediate study is needed in this
area which is still missing. If the sector fails to address this issue, i the present business share. To
find out the loopholes in the system a thorough study is necessary on social compliance
governance.

Literature Review
Articles, journals, reports in print and electronic media and websites are available mostly on the
hostile and unsafe working conditions, exploitation of the workers. But no comprehensive and
intensive study is present on social compliance.

The health status of workers before and after entering the garment work was an issue of the
research study carried out by Majumder (2001). The researcher found that about 75 percent of
the garment workers had good health before they joined the garment factory. The study pointed
out that occupational hazards, adverse working conditions, and absence of staff amenities,
stringent terms and condition of garment employment, workplace stress and poor wages were the
causes of health deteriorations.

Begum, Ali, Hossain & Sahid (2010, pp. 291-296) have studied on harassment of women
garment workers in Bangladesh and found that the female workers are mostly  in vulnerable
position, they are harassed in many ways. They are deprived of the legitimate payment and
because of the monotony of the job they lose interest from it and tend to leave job. No attention
is paid to their comfort which is why the female workers suffer from communication problem
which is another reason for their job dissatisfaction. Apart from these issues they also suffer from
mental stress and other health issues like headache, eye trouble, ear ache, musculoskeletal pain
etc. It is also noted from the study that, the women workers do not get sufficient technical
training and are being exploited for this. A sound economic policy can stimulate the industrial
growth, while weak governance can destroy it. The study pointed that the garment industry is
characterized by a predominance of female workers who are prepared to accept lower wages than
their male counterparts due to their lower opportunity cost of time. The researcher remarked that
“low labour cost in Bangladesh’s garment industry was partly the result of surplus labour
situation in the country, and partly originated from the violation of national and international
labour standards by the garment factory owners” (Rashid 2006, p.2).

Jobs in the RMG industry remain discriminatory in nature. It is evident that garment owners are
getting considerable incentives and encouragement from the government but they are reluctant to
share those incentives and growing profits among the workers. Labourers in the Bangladeshi
RMG industry have been denied their legal rights; they do not have appointment letters, usually
work long hours in poor working conditions and are forced to do overtime work with irregular
monthly payments. Workers are barred from forming collective organizations and the
termination occurs frequently without any logical reason (Morshed 2007, p. 178).

Begum & Ahmad (1999, p. 15) mentioned that though the government has identified this sector
as the thrust sector of the country and has always been formulating favorable rules and
regulations, frequent alteration of government rules and regulations and tax policies are the
major problems of this sector. With the changes of the government, the new government alters
all the policies of the previous government. The researchers determined Controllable and
Uncontrollable variables in this respect, both in domestic and international perspective for the
RMG sector and emphasized on appropriate policy with effective implementation mechanism.
On the contrary, Islam (2008, p.7) noted “despite their contribution to the success of the RMG
sector, the basic rights of workers have been neglected. The minimum wage was not reviewed
for another twelve years, in spite of legal provisions for review of wages by a Wage Board every
two years”. Islam (2008) also pointed out that workers in RMG sector do not enjoy rest, leisure
or recreation as guaranteed under article 15(c) of the constitution of the peoples’ republic of
Bangladesh.

It was the private entrepreneurship alone that helped the RMG sector to emerge and flourish in
Bangladesh. No sector can operate alone without support from public sector. RMG in all respects
is a huge industry and requires the collective effort. Having stakeholder involvement from both
public and private sector the RMG needs cooperation between these two sectors to solve
problems in a better manner. Khan (2011, p.4) emphasized on public private partnership (PPP)
for the better labour relationship.

Nonexistence of good governance helped this sector grow unregulated. Relaxation at the initial
stage has harmed the sector in the long run. Islam (2013) mentioned that “if the conditions at the
beginning were different, that is, strict control was in force; all legal requirements in the factories
were made mandatory including observance of code of conduct; labour and factory compliances
were compulsory; buyers were firm on their requirements including their demands for sourcing
factories to be compliant, today we might have ended up with maybe a mere 25 per cent of the
number of factories than that we actually have today. But with this scenario there could have
been some better pictures available in the industry as well. Factories growing up under those
conditions could have been far more efficient and resilient in running production; managements
could have been better positioned in price negotiations; workers would have been far better off in
terms of getting better compensation packages and other benefits, by far less or no industrial
unrest, better image of the country in the eyes of the rest of the world, etc.”.

Abdin (2008, p.4) quoted in his work “once derided as a bottomless basket-case by Henry
Kissinger, the country stumbled across an economic opportunity in the late 1970s. New rules
came to govern the international trade in textiles and apparel, allowing the low-cost suppliers to
gain a foothold in American and European markets. In the process, it has boosted the overall
economic growth of the country and raised the viability of other export-oriented sectors”.

Bangladesh lacks skilled workers in the apparel sector at both machine operator and mid-
management levels, including technical professionals. Stark, Gereffi & Psilos (2011, p.34)
identified the deficiency of skills both in operation and management level. On the contrary many
entrepreneurs try to rationalize the existing low wages with low productivity of workers. Sikdar,
Sarker and Sadeka (2014) found that women are doing work on an average 12 hours/day in the
garment industry but they receive average salary less than Tk. 7000 per month. It is notable that
they lead such a life in which their basic family expenses are hardly met. So the researchers
recommended that the government should fix the minimum wage in order to provide better
standard of living.

The corporate code of conduct has come into light after the EU and American brands and
retailers were embarrassed by the fact that their products were made in inhuman condition in
Central America and Asia from the reports and news from television. After that they had written
codes of conduct and monitored these to ensure legal, ethical and humane working condition and
with the advent of modern technology one can easily track down events happening in another
part of the world through video, voice and data. So there is no provision for hiding things. So the
corporate codes of conduct were trying to ensure proper implementation of Core ILO
conventions and also were trying to verify that there were no forced or compulsory labour, no
child labour. Freedom of association, acceptable working conditions with respect to wages, hours
of work, and health and safety and no discrimination ensure better social compliance for RMG.
“Third party Social Compliance Certificates” are offered to tackle these issues and to build
confidence between manufacturers, retailers and the consumers” (Amin, 2010, p.1).

It is important to move forward with an effective industrial management, according to Hossain

(2006), “Labour protests that spread from a sweater factory in Gazipur on 11 May to Savar EPZ,
Ashulia and Dhaka on 22 May, erupted in state violence and vandalism on 23 and 24 May. The
action of police against workers resulted in death of three, leaving many others injured and even
more arrested. This led to breakages, looting, closures and possible layoffs. Violence is never a
satisfactory method of dispute resolution nor does it indicate healthy labour relations”. She wrote
garment manufacturers claimed to be compliant with the buyer’s condition. But it was seen only
to the extent of buyer’s satisfaction and no improvement on workers working condition.

An independent research organization in Sweden, raised questions on women rights in their

study stating that “Before the garment industry boom, most women in Bangladesh used to work
in the agricultural sector. After the 1980s, there was a huge boom in the private industrial sector,
specifically female dominated garment sector. Today, female garment workers are the backbone
of the RMG industry. It should be a women’s revolution, but is it?” (Swedwatch, 2012, p.6)

Most of the literatures available are focused on workers’ unrest, health and hygiene; minimum
wages i.e. partial aspects of social compliance. But none of the above study was conducted on
social compliance as a holistic approach especially on its policies, governance system and
implementation process of those policies. The role of government and all concerned decision
making and implementation bodies in regards to social compliance is absent in the previous
studies.

Research Questions
Bangladesh shares around five percent only in global apparel export market (BKMEA,
2015).There are huge opportunities to increase market share. Though the sector has experienced
geometric growth over the last two decades yet many a time the sector has also tarnished the
image of the country due to non- compliance issues. To overcome the compliance challenges and
to grab the potentials of the sector the areas of problem have been identified in the previous
section.

A number of questions were posed to understand the major problems in relation to the current
study as, Aminuzzaman (1991, p.81) argues

“Every research work starts with a set of research questions. The entire    research process is
accordingly guided by these questions. The research questions are derived from variety of
sources, starting from the interest and inquisitiveness of the researcher, controversies or
challenges generated from a profound social issue and overall policy orientation of a research
substance”.
Based on the above research background and reality the central research question of the current
study is to observe, how the existing legal frameworks of RMG sector work?  In addition, some
specific research questions have been taken in order to explore the research problems
successfully. The following questions are addressed to find out an effective solution of the
problems related to social compliance:
1. What are the institutional arrangement and legal frameworks of social compliance in
RMG sector in Bangladesh?
2. How does the existing governance system of social compliance in RMG work?
Objectives of the Study
The broader objective of the study is mainly to examine the role of government implementing
social compliance in Bangladesh RMG manufacturing industry, as a part of the global supply
chain. More specifically, the study has focused on the core issues of social compliance, its
governance system, the problems with implementing social issues in the RMG factories and
impact of noncompliance on the business.

The specific objectives of the study are given below:

1. To analyze the growth and development of RMG industry in Bangladesh along with the
evolution of social compliance and its institutional arrangement.
2. To explain the legal and organizational frameworks to implement social compliance in
the RMG factories.
3. To identify the problems and suggest possible measures related to social compliance.
Significance of the Study
To formulate an effective and realistic policy on social compliance
For implementation any policy it is important to consider social and economic conditions of the
country. A policy or guideline that is suitable in developed countries may not be equally
implementable in developing or least developed countries. It is unrealistic to implement the
global standards on workers’ rights irrespective of the country status. Rather country specific
standards are more effective. On the other hand, a policy does not help if it is not implemented
properly. Present study will help the policy makers to understand the importance of a country
specific guideline on social compliance and weakness in its governance system.

To develop a comprehensive guideline on social compliance

Social compliance in the business activities especially in global supply chain, which has
multidimensional aspects, is mandatory. But there is no comprehensive guideline in this field.
Present study will help to develop a comprehensive guideline for the different stake holders

Will initiate further researches

There was no particular study available on social compliance related to the RMG sector. So the
very intention of the researcher was to highlight this crucial area of the international business in
detail. This single issue- social compliance depends on multiple standards and sets of codes of
conduct. It was difficult to cover all the factors in detail. Present study covers a general overview
of all those areas.  It demands further and intensive explanation on each single area. This study
will open up the opportunities for the future researchers to explore those uncovered areas.

To find the solutions of the problem

It is worth mentioning that the researcher is involved with this very sector since 1995 and
experienced with different activities including social compliance of this sector. Researcher has
experienced many complex situations of different types over the period of time. Lack of proper
guideline and absence of a core authority have led to confusion, complex, repetition of audits
that made it difficult to implement in proper manner.  Researcher has felt the necessity of a
unified guideline on social compliance. His hands-on experience over the two decades and
personal relationships with the stake holders, specifically with compliance handlers, has helped
and motivated the researcher to undertake the initiative of doing a comprehensive study on social
compliance. At the same time the researcher has turned to be the key informant as well in this
study

Scope and Limitations of the Study

There are 5615 member factories in different areas of the country under 2 apex bodies,
Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) and Bangladesh
Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA). Apart from those listed factories
there are around 800 non-member factories, which are known as subcontract factories. Though it
is difficult to identify the total employment in both member and non-member factories but it is
estimated that around 4.6 million workers are directly employed in this sector. It is not possible
to cover a vast sector in a single study. The current research work has focused on one of the
important RMG manufacturing hubs – Ashulia Industrial Area. More than 300 factories, within
three kilometers distance between Ashulia bridge and Baipal, accounts for 20 percent of the total
garment exports of Bangladesh (Textile Today, 2012). There are factories in different sizes and
types, compliant and non-compliant both. Most of the workers unrests the sector has so far
experienced got initiated from Ashulia. These are the reasons why the focus of the study was
centered on Ashulia industrial area.

On the other hand, Social compliance in RMG sector has multidimensional aspects related to
labour and environment. All these issues cannot be addresses at a time. Considering the role of
the factors in molding and steering social compliance the present study has incorporated the core
labour standards set by International Labour Organization (ILO) along with government’s policy
and governance system to implement those standards.
Research Methodology
This is an empirical research. Firsthand data and information were required for this study. As a
result, qualitative research methods were chosen and applied throughout this research. Though
different qualitative methods were used, data from secondary sources were also collected and
supplemented with the qualitative data. In addition, quantitative research methods were used in
order to authenticate the empirical findings.

The researcher, being a key informant himself, has enriched the study with his personal
observations throughout his more than two decades of career in this particular field. It has helped
to understand this sector’s growth at different stages, the factors that influenced the growth, its
contributions. The unique part of this particular research is the research’s firsthand experience
that has unwrapped many untold and unknown information of the sector. In order to answer the
research questions and to achieve the research objectives, multiple research methods were used
during this empirical study. The summary of research methods in relation to research objectives
are presented in the following table.

Table 1.1 : Research Methodology and Field Study

Research Research Field Study Major
Research Methods
Questions Objectives Objectives participants

Labour law
To explain practitioners,
What are the the legal and compliance
legal and organization managers,
Secondary data – laws
policy al federation
To know the legal related to labour and
frameworks frameworks leaders,
and policy guideline industry, government
of social to concerned
of social policies on labour, ILO
compliance implement government
compliance guideline etc in-depth
in RMG social officials,
interview
sector in compliance officials of
Bangladesh?   in the RMG ILO and other
factories.     international
agencies

How does  To analyze Find out the case study analysis, in- Factory top
the existing the growth different phases of depth interview, management,
governance and growth in RMG Participant observation, apex bodies,
system of development sector, who are the questionnaire survey   buyers
social of RMG responsible for the representative
compliance industry in implementation of s, compliance
in RMG Bangladesh social compliance,   manager,
sector work? along with Analysis the present third party
the practices, auditors,
evolution of workers
social
compliance
and its
institutional
 arrangement
Ashulia, an important industrial cluster where all types and sizes of factories- modern as well as
very old patterned, compliant and non-compliant are available and most of the unrests were
initiated from this particular area, was given special focus for data collection.

Sources of Data
The major sources of data included workers and Compliance heads, top management and owners
of the factories, Government officials concerned in implementing labour laws, Apex bodies –
BGMEA, BKMEA, industry experts, buyers’ representative responsible for social compliance,
labour law advisers and labour organization / NGOs’ work on this particular area.

Sampling
The respondents were divided into two groups to get a clear view of the status of social
compliance. A small, but representative sample size of target group was interviewed to address
the research problem. A total 240 respondents from 10 different factories were randomly selected
for questionnaire survey. All those respondents were divided into two sections/categories – A
and B. Category A include workers and supervisors to whom structured questionnaire was used
to survey while category B include compliance managers and factory heads where a semi-
structured questionnaire had been used.  Different types of respondents under the two categories
are shown in the following table.Organization of the Thesis
Table 1.2: Sample size at factory level (Section A + B)
Respondent Type Female Male Total

Worker 94 56 150

Supervisor 10 40 50

Compliance In-Charge 0 20 20

Factory Heads 0 20 20

       

Grand Total 104 136 240

Keeping in mind the research objectives, an in-depth interview was conducted among
government officials, leaders of the apex bodies, factory owners, buyers’ representatives, labour
law practitioners, NGO leaders and officials from international agencies who were the major
stakeholders to know the evolution, legal and institutional framework of social compliance.

Table 1.3: Sample sizes of Respondents for Interview

Governme Apex Buyers   Labo NGO   Internati 3dr Party   Othe
 r
Body /   nal Audit
nt Official Representative Law Leaer s
Owners agencies company
er

10 25 10 5 10 5 10 5

Total   80
Data Processing
The collected data was processed and analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
(SPSS) tool and MS Excel. The data was presented in a graphic manner using some charts,
graphs, tabulation and percentage forms. A mixed approach of qualitative and quantitative
information has been used to interpret the data. Quantitative approach has been used to
generalize the existing state of compliance from the data received from the respondents.
Qualitative approach has been used to explain the difficulties associated with business
relationship between social compliance and worker satisfaction.

Strategies Applied for Data Collection and Validation

Keeping these practical limitations in mind workers were interviewed in their residence instead
of their factory premises for an open and free discussion to collect the authentic information.
More emphasis was given on primary data. This is notable that researcher’s long term career in
the same sector has minimized the risk of data authentication and verification.

Organization of the Thesis

Since this is new of its kind of endeavor in Bangladesh the whole research work has to provide
with a comprehensive detail. Various phenomena have been accumulated for the clear
understanding of social compliance putting equal importance to every single issue. However, on
the basis of research objectives the thesis consists of seven different chapters in following
manner.

Graph 1.0: Organization of the thesis

The first chapter contains of the background of the study, problem statement, review of related
literatures, research questions, objectives, rationality and justification of the research, scope and
limitations of the study, research methodology, sources of data, sampling, data processing,
strategies applied for data collection and validation and research structure.

Chapter two provides theoretical framework of the research: the evolution of social compliance,
its legal framework, development of codes of conduct (CC)

Chapter three depicts growth of Readymade Garment (RMG) industry in Bangladesh. In this
chapter the areas covered are the relocations of RMG production, factors behind the success, its
growth, and business linkages – backward and forward and its contribution and importance of
social compliance in apparel business.

Chapter four describes the findings on social compliance, its evolution and existing practices of
in Bangladesh apparel industry based on secondary data and respondent interviews.

Chapter five deals with the core findings of questionnaires survey and in-depth interviews and
finds out the weakness and challenges with existing compliance governance.

Finally, chapter six draws the conclusion, recommendations and future research agenda.

Chapter II
Theoretical Framework: Social Compliance
Introduction
The present concept of social compliance leaves behind a long history molded by different
incidents and movements along the time line of social history with particular reference to
production system. At the cottage industrial phase in Asian societies like Bangladesh during
medieval period the industrial activities were confined at the family level involving almost all
family members based on their age and capacities where a noteworthy and ideal system of social
compliance were in practice (Tasneem and Biswas, 2014). Due to disruption in the evolutionary
growth of industrialization from cottage industry to modern industries in these areas the age old
social compliance system lost its continuity at the present industrial system. With advent of
industrialization, especially in the west, it in course of time emerged as a very significant
concern for ensuring worker’s wellbeing and industrial human rights without harming the
interests and expectations of stakeholders including the producers and users. The historical
realities associated with feudalism, industrial revolution, French revolution, American Civil War,
emergence of Socialist and labour movements, emergence of International Labour Organization,
UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights etc. shaped the foundation of present concept and
practices of social compliance in the production sectors throughout the world. The present
chapter with a view to conceptualizing and developing an analytical framework of social
compliance in the Ready Made Garments (RMG) sector focuses on the general concept of social
compliance, evolution of social compliance in the labour process in general and garment sector
in particular and ultimately presents a conceptual and analytical framework of social compliance.

The concepts of Compliance and Social compliance

Compliance in its general sense is the action or fact of complying with a wish or command It is
either a state of being in accordance with established guidelines or specifications, or the process
of becoming so[1]. It describes the ability to act according to an order, set of rules or request and
operates at two levels: Level 1 – compliance with the external rules that are imposed upon an
organization as a whole Level 2 – compliance with internal systems of control that are imposed
to achieve compliance with the externally imposed rules[2].

Social compliance refers to a special form of compliance activity related to the industrial and
business sectors. It is the result of conformance “to the rules of social accountability by the
extended organization including not only the organization’s own policies and practices but also
those of its supply and distribution chains. It is a continuing process in which the involved
parties keep on looking for better ways to protect the health, safety, and fundamental rights of
their employees, and to protect and enhance the community and environment in which they
operate[3].

Social compliance delivers the shares benefits to all stakeholders along the value chain. The
practice of ethical business ensures business continuity of suppliers, generate goodwill for the
brands, and create awareness among the workers. Social compliance, an integral part of
manufacturing business is mainly linked with the supply chain, especially with the international
market, is not directly involved with product, but it creates value for the product. It has both
regulatory and voluntary contexts.

The term social compliance also refers to ethical and legal compliance which upholds the
freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining, the
elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour, the effective abolition of child labour,
and the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation (ILO, 2002).
Workers, work condition, ethical practices, environment are the areas of major concerns of
compliance. The buyers of readymade garments are mainly from developed countries. They need
to be ensured that every manufacturing unit in their supply chain follows locally and
internationally recognized standards, rules and laws on labour. Code of conduct is the guideline
for the manufacturer about what to do and what not to do with workers, working condition and
with production process.

Evolution of Social Compliance

The present concepts and practices social compliance have their roots basically in industrial
revolution although may other incidents, movements and initiatives have enormous impact in
shaping its existing totality. The industrial Revolution not only changed the social power
structure, culture and human behavior it also had a profound impact on the human population.
During the period the rate of population growth was almost double, which is contrary to the
effect of invention of machine power in industrial production process that decreased the
manpower demand. Increasing population with machine backed production made the workers
worry about their job security. Employers, except a few, took every opportunity of the situation.
To the first generation workers, having an employment was more important than being
unemployed. Working condition and environment were not issues to be considered by the
employers. But afterward the compliance issue becomes prominent. The present emphasis on
social compliance is the product of different historical causes of action. Without taking these
causes into consideration it is difficult to understand and conceptualize the issue of social
compliance. In line with this, the following sections highlights the incidents, efforts,
organizations and other allied factors those have enormousness influence on the current
phenomenal development of social compliance.

The End of Feudalism (1500 – 1861)

During the period of Feudalism, a system for structuring society around relationships derived
from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour. The time span of medieval feudal
economy was from 9th to 15thcentury that was based on agricultural works mainly. Marl Marx
(1818 – 1883) who describes the system, Feudalism from political and economic standpoints,
views it as the economic situation coming before the rise of capitalism or which is most widely
known as mercantilism.[4] He defined feudalism as the power of the ruling class (the
aristocracy) rested on their control of arable land, leading to a class of society based upon the
exploitation of the peasants who used to farm these lands, typically under serfdom. The social
compliance of that time was disappearance of the system, peasants got their land free from most
of Western Europe in around 1500 and from central and Eastern Europe by 1850s, in Russia
serfdom was finally abolished in1861.
The Industrial Revolution (1760 – 1840)
The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain and spread to Western Europe and the United
States within a few decades. It was the transition to new manufacturing processes in the period
from about 1760 to sometimes between 1820 and 1840. The First Industrial Revolution evolved
into the Second Industrial Revolution in the transition years between 1840 and 1870 (Lewis
Hackett, 1992)[5]

The Industrial Revolution and regulation to monitor new industries did not happen
simultaneously. Employment generation for the increasing population was the main challenge of
that time. People in large number came to the towns from the countryside for job as the rate of
unemployment was getting high to higher in the first phases of the Industrial Revolution. With
the huge scarcity of employment, for the first generation of workers—from the 1790s to the
1840s, workers who were around 80% of total number of the people had very limited or no
power to bargain with their new employers on wages, working hours, or working conditions.
Working conditions were very tough, unbearable and tragic – 10 to 14 working hours a day, six
days a week, no safety hazards, no paid vacation or holidays, no financial compensation for any
injury, and of course no time and opportunity for recreation. Rather the owners used to fine the
workers who left or remained absent from their jobs to ensure uninterrupted workflow in the
factories.
The French Revolution (1789 – 1799)
The French revolution, with major changes in social and political system in France, is regarded
as one of the most important events in human history. The revolution took place in different
stages, which had started from 1789 and continued till 1799. The National Constituent Assembly
abolished feudalism on the night of 4 August 1789.The Assembly published the Declaration of
the Rights of Man and of the Citizen on 26th August 1789 that comprised a statement of
principles instead of a constitution with legal effect[6]. Writing the first constitution (French
Constitution of 1791) was the most important outcome of the revolution. The Declaration of the
Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789 is a fundamental document of the French Revolution
and in the history of human rights. The declaration inspired the United Nations Universal
Declaration of Human Rights significantly.
Utopian Socialism (First Quarter of the 19th Century)
The term “Utopian socialism” was introduced by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in “The  
Communist Manifesto” in 1848 that was made clear in Engels’ work, “Socialism: Utopian and
Scientific” in 1892. It is Utopian socialism that is often described as the presentation of visions
and outlines of futuristic ideal societies, having the positive ideals being the main reason for
moving society in such a direction (Lafargue, 1970). The three principal utopian socialists were
the Frenchmen Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825) and Charles Fourier (1772–1837) and the
British factory owner Robert Owen (1771–1858) who turned themselves as social and industrial
reformer and changed the traditional approach to the employees[7]. Child labour, working hours
and many welfare programs towards the employees gave them recognition as the advocate of
utopian socialism. Robert Owen raised the demand for a ten-hour day in 1810, and instituted it in
his socialist enterprise at New Lanark. He had formulated the goal of eight-hour day by 1817
coining the slogan “Eight hours labour, Eight hours recreation, Eight hours rest”

American Civil War (1861 – 1865)

The much hated slavery system was practiced throughout American colonies in the 17th and
18th centuries. Though slaves were initially used in production of lucrative crops like tobacco but
the invention of cotton gin in 1793 solidified the central importance of slavery. England textile
industry was highly dependent on American cotton. As   cheaper source of labour African slaves
were used in the agriculture and industrial sector. In 1860, there were 4 million slaves in the US,
some 60% of whom worked in cotton. American civil war, from 1861 to 1865, had its origin on
the issues of slavery. After four years of combat that left over 600,000 soldiers dead and many
infrastructure destroyed, slavery was finally abolished. So the compliance of that period was to
ensure slavery free workplace (James Mcpherson, 2014).
International Labour Day, 1886
There is no history that tells of achievement of rights by the employees without demand or
demonstration.  The eight-hour day or 40-hour week movement had its origins in the Industrial
Revolution in Britain, during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Women and children in
England were first granted the ten-hour day in 1847. After the February revolution of 1848,
French workers won the 12-hour day. The International Workingmen’s Association took up the
demand for an eight-hour day- the legal limitation of the working day, at its convention in
Geneva in August 1866.In 1884 at the Chicago convention the Federation of Organized Trades
and Labour Unions resolved that “eight hours shall constitute a day’s legal labour from and after
May 1, 1886” (Lily Rothman, 2015).  On May 3, 1886, workers movement turned into violence.
The police arrived, opened fire, and killed four people, wounded many more. On May 4, at a
subsequent rally, to protest this violence, a bomb exploded at the Haymarket Square. Hundreds
of labour activists were rounded up and the prominent labour leaders arrested, tried, convicted,
and executed. The International Workingmen’s Association, meeting in Paris in 1889, endorsed
the date for international demonstrations, thus starting the international tradition of May Day
(Eric Chase, 1993).[8]

International Labour Organization (ILO), 1919

The concept of labour standards and social accountability in the business legitimated with the
creation of the International Labour Organization (ILO). ILO was one of the outcomes of
Versailles treaty that ended the World War I to reflect the belief that universal and lasting peace
can be accomplished only if it was based on social justice. The international labour movement
demanding a comprehensive action during the World War I and protection for the working class,
got an important attention by the international leaders after the World War I, as this very class
had an active participation and support during the war (IOE, 1920).

The initial motivation was humanitarian, replacing exploitation and adverse working condition.
Second, without an improvement in their condition, the workers would create social unrest. The
third motivation was economic, a universal application of the system to create level playing field
across the industries and countries. Simultaneous reform through the ILO would avoid this
problem. ILO, that turned a specialized agency of the United Nations in 1948, started its journey
with the motto of “Promoting jobs, protecting people” (ILO, 2002).

United Nations’ Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR), 1948

On December 10, 1948 the General Assembly of the United Nations (Bangladesh became the
136th member of United Nations on September 17, 1974) adopted and proclaimed the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. This is one of the most important sources of economic, social and
cultural rights. The declaration includes 30 articles to end all forms of exploitation, to ensure
right to live, liberty and security, non-discrimination, and that human beings are equal in dignity
and rights (UHR, 2008).

Globalization and Revolution of Information Technology

Information technology has made available the access of information worldwide. Sharing
information and spirit of openness are helping to know wherever, whenever and whatever
happens at the bottoms of the supply chain (Lawrence J. Lau 2000, p. 9) Multinational
Enterprises (MNEs) started sub-contracting the mass consumed product like RMG from
developing countries to get the competitive advantage on production cost. This low wage priority
did not get the attention of basic labour rights, welfare, working environment etc. resulting in
harsh criticism from the labour rights group, consumers in the host countries. When the wave of
information technology (website, internet and social media) got momentum during 90s, this
criticism turned to a big threat to business (Benjamin R. Lawlor 2007 p.15). The consumers
started boycotting the products that was produced in a condition, which was hostile to the
workers. Elimination of unethical business behavior and in response to pressure from consumers,
manufacturing countries and human rights groups, and several international organizations
developed ethical guidelines to address the conduct of MNEs.  During 80’s development of
computer technology, economic globalization had emerged from a possibility to an undeniable
fact and the main trend of the contemporary world (Wang, 2004 p.473).  In employment creation
for the millions in countries with poor wages and eradication of extreme poverty the
contributions of trade liberalization and globalization are immense. Simultaneously there is also
an opposite side of globalization i.e. a huge gap between the rich and the poor- unequal
distribution of wealth.

Anti-Sweatshop and Clean Cloth Campaign (CCC)

The term Sweatshop originated in 1892, when American garment workers began to speak up
about heinous working conditions. Sweatshop is a manufacturing facility with low wages,
available child workers, poor working condition, long working hours, violation or absence of
labour law. Anti-Sweatshop refers to campaigning movements to improve the conditions of
workers in manufacturing places characterized by low wages, poor working conditions and often
child labour. People of the first world countries are now aware of sweatshop in third world
countries by virtue of the revolution of information technology during 90’s. United Students
Against Sweatshops (USAS) was formed in 1997 to ensure greater justice and healthy working
conditions for labourers especially in the third world who make their products (Mandle,
2000).Nike – The world’s best-selling US based brand sources its athletic shoes from Asian
countries under sweatshop conditions. Campaigners call for boycotting Nike globally was so
successful that in other leading sportswear brands including Adidas, Puma, Reebok and
Timberland were compelled to adopt an ethical work place standard (OCA, 2005).

Another alliance for The Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC), formed in 1989 in the Netherlands,
focuses on the improvement of working conditions in the garment and sportswear industries. The
Clean Clothes Campaign insists that companies to bear a responsibility and have the power to
ensure that workers throughout their supply chains are treated fairly (CCC, 2013). The CCC has
developed a “Code of Labour Practices for the Apparel Industry Including Sportswear” in 1998
based upon the conventions of the United Nations International Labour Organization followed by
the basic labour conditions – wages, hours and working conditions.

Formulation of Social Code of Conduct

Social codes of conduct are rules and guidelines imposed by buyers upon themselves and along
their supply chains, both in response to consumer’s pressure and as part of comprehensive
marketing strategies aimed at improving their image. It is believed that it was the consumers who
compelled the companies and brands to formulate their respective codes of conduct.

The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) “Code of Standards of Advertising Practice”

created the first international code of conduct for multinationals in 1937 (ICC, 1997). In line
with social accountability, multinational corporations developed their ethical guidelines in 1970s.
During 1970s, The United Nations and OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and
Development), a unique forum of 30 countries developed the Code of Conduct (CoC) for
Multinational Enterprises. Formal adaptation and practices of those codes by the multinational
companies were not visible since they were voluntary and not legally binding. In the early 1970s,
multinational enterprises (MNEs) were widely criticized for their behavior in developing
countries as none of them considered human rights, labour rights, workplace safety (Jill Murray,
1996). The codes remained merely a statement of principles in its earlier stage. During the 1980s,
private groups developed voluntary codes of conduct; especially those are in apparel business.
The first apparel company, Levi Strauss & Co, adopted the code of conduct in 1991 (Rosen,
Jaffe, Perez-Lopez, 1996, p 11)
Social Compliance in RMG Sector
There is a historical relationship between sewing machine operation and exploitation along with
long working hours and child labour. At the very outset of technological advancement during the
18th century, any innovation in textiles and apparel sector used to face workers protest, as they
feared they would lose job. Having proved their fear to be wrong, the machines actually have
created millions of jobs. Textiles and apparel was the pioneer industry at the era of industrial
revolution. This particular industry was the startup industry in many of developed countries.
During 1850, the sewing machine really took off as a worldwide means of production. Karl Marx
(1818 – 1883) viewed the sewing machines as, the ‘decisively revolutionary machine’ (Coffin,
1999, p.111) in connection of sewing machine’s role, from its beginnings, shaping global
capitalism. These machines overthrew existing social mode of production and it transformed the
role of women in industry. It created a revolution in consumption, established supply chain
system among the manufacturers in developing and least developing countries to the retailers in
developed countries. Historically, in the production transformation process, from Agrarian to
Industrial, this industry contributed in highest employment generation. The fact is, at any age,
this transformation of labour intensive sector did not ensure job security, working environment –
working hours, safety, fair payment etc. Rather recruitment of child labour, wage discrimination,
exploitation etc. were common practices throughout the industry both in developed and
developing countries. Maximization of profit by the sellers and manufacturers always tended to
exploit the workers, the core element of the production.
Historical quotation “To live means to buy, to buy means to have power, to have power means to
have duties” from Florence Kelley First General Secretary, National Consumers League NCL),
America’s oldest consumer organization, representing consumers and workers on marketplace
and workplace issues since its founding in 1899 to protect and promote social and economic
justice for consumers and workers in the United States and abroad during progressive era (1890
– 1920) can be considered the basic essence of social compliance (Kelley, 1916). Later on many
different international organizations (like International Labour Organization (ILO) conventions
on labour rights & standard, United Nations (UN) universal declaration on human rights, World
Trade Organization (WTO) agenda on work place standard, Anti-sweatshop movement, Clean
Cloth Campaign etc. echoed the dignity of humanity. The painful truth is that till today the
dignity of humanity especially in workplaces has not been materialized as expected. Religious
obligation, legal bindings, and campaign nothing ensured establishment of human rights for the
labour.
The Apparel Industry Partnership (AIP) Initiative
The concept of social compliance was developed and placed as a precondition in businesses by
the American buyers first in the RMG manufacturing supply chain (Hemphill, 1999). Mr.
Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th President of the United States from 1969 to 1974, introduced
quota system under Multi Fiber Agreement (MFA). With this system manufacturing of
readymade garments flourished in the least developed countries. To uphold labour rights and to
eradicate sweatshops, Mr. William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton, 42nd President of the United States
from 1993 to 2001 initiated the Apparel Industry Partnership (AIP) in August 1996 to ensure that
products are manufactured under humane working conditions and to communicate that
information to consumers (DOL, 1997). The 44th President of USA since 2008 has prioritized on
cutting greenhouse gas emissions, addressing climate change and global warming (Jungjohann
A, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, 2008).
Social Compliance – Its Criteria, Types and Cycle
The factors discussed above in together have contributed to shape a general framework of social
compliance including its characteristics, features, types and dynamic mechanism. There is no
specific and universally accepted definition of social compliance.  It can be described with some
predetermined set of standards to be followed by the organizations or facilities within the supply
chain. These standards are to follow continuously and fully.  Violation of any single issue for a
particular period of time makes the facility non-compliance. The standards relate to fundamental
rights of the employees, protection of health and safety, upholding the society and environment it
operates into.
Social compliance delivers the shared benefits to all stakeholders along the value chain. The
practice of ethical business ensures business continuity to suppliers, generate goodwill for the
brands, and create awareness among the workers. Social compliance encompasses three basic
issues such as (i) workers satisfaction, (ii) business growth and sustainability and (iii) brand
goodwill and consumers pride. These are shown in the following diagram.

Graph 2.0: Social Compliance and its Shared Benefits

The presence of social compliance ensures workers satisfaction as the basic principle of social
compliance which is to protect workers’ rights, safety and security. A satisfied worker only can
deliver customer’s satisfaction that ensure business growth and sustainability i.e. ability to
maintain that growth at a certain level or in some cases even increase it. The buyers or the brand
who buy the products and services, from those companies where workers are dedicated and
motivated speak out for the company he/she belongs to, getting ensured about their ethical
sourcing that creates brand’s values to their buyers. Ultimate customers who are the users of the
products and services feel better when they know the workers involved in the production chain
are being fairly treated. The customers are in some cases ready to pay extra charges to buy the
products which were sourced ethically.

Three Essential Criteria in Social Compliance

Social compliance is similar type of initiative for the same kind of business within the supply
chain and supported by law, international standards, and buyers Codes of Conduct (CoC) etc.
Social compliance is not any voluntary initiative like Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
rather it is a legal requirement with verifiable process and a motive of continual improvement.

I. It’s an obligation – Legal and contractual.

Social compliance in the business activities especially in the supply chain management of the
global value chain is a legal obligation for the entrepreneurs with no option (Rashid, 2014, p- 4).
Entrepreneurs involved in the international business have to follow industry and country specific
requirements at manufacturing stage based on local laws, regulations and international standards
(ILO, 2002). They are also to comply with the requirements of importing countries, as applied

II. It has a verifiable process – Audit system

There are some mechanisms in place to verify if those requirements are being followed properly
or being violated. Any violation on legal issues is an offense and breach of contract that is
followed by legal action and or loss of business. An audit is a systematic, independent and
documented process to obtain evidences and to assess it objectivity to verify conformity against
the audited criteria (CPI, 2012 p- 5)

III. It has improvement scope – Corrective Action Plan (CAP)

Social compliance in the businesses is a continuous process and there are options to take
corrective measures, if any violation is found, to rectify and improve where necessary within the
given time period (CPI, 2012 p- 19)

Types of Compliance
There are different types of compliances. Compliance started with social issues directly related to
workers’ rights and safety. With the passing time; different types of compliance audits in
different areas like Security, Quality, and Environment have evolved. For now environmental
audit happens to be only a part of social audit. The important types of social compliance are as
follows.

Legal and Ethical compliance

Social compliance refers to all legal and/or ethical issues of the workers. As such it is also
termed as legal or ethical compliance in the workplace. It deals with workers’ rights, working
conditions, health and safety, social security etc. This is absolutely non-product requirement. The
verification process of social compliance is called social audit.

Technical Compliance
Apart from workers’ rights there are some issues based on product and production process. To
get the right product at the right time some guidelines have to be followed which varies
depending on buyers’ demand and requirements. Technical compliance basically is the matter of
concern and is conducted by the buyers.

Security Compliance
As a part of global supply chain compliance in apparel manufacturing process is an issue of
continual improvement. Over the period of time following on the international situation new
issues are being added to the list of compliance. The USA customs, after devastating terrorist
attack by Al-Qaeda in the year 2001 on September 9 which is known as 9/11attack, in the twin
tower in New York, imposed new requirement introducing Customs- Trade Partnership Against
Terrorism (C-TPAT)  as a security compliance initiative. This program began in November 2001
and following the program world customs organization created the framework of standards to
secure and facilitate global trade in 2005.Companies exporting to USA must be eligible and
agree to comply with the C-TPAT security criteria.

Environmental Compliance
In response of climate change and global warming, environmental compliance in the business
initiative is an inevitable condition. None of the business initiative is allowed to pollute
environment i.e. air, water, and soil in any form and nature. So apparel industry has to follow and
respect environmental laws of the country and global standard.
Fire and Building safety compliance
After tragic accidents in Tazreen fashions and Rana plaza two major initiatives – The Accord on
Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh (the Accord) and The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker
Safety (Alliance) were initiated by the brands, trade unions since 2013 to ensure a safe working
environment and to improve safety in Bangladeshi ready-made garment (RMG) factories.
Factories have to comply with the standard of those two initiatives – Accord and Alliance.

Compliance Cycle
Social compliance is now a universally accepted phenomenon especially in the production
system throughout the world. It follows an approved cycle process. To be declared as a
compliant factory a complete cycle of social compliance needs to be followed. There is no scope
of partial fulfillment of this cycle. The cycle includes setting a standard or policy framework that
includes local labour and industry laws, verifications in regular intervals with announced or
unannounced visit. In compliance there are some issues with zero tolerance basically on child or
forced labour, harassment and as specified in the respective buyers’ CoCs. There are scopes of
improvement i.e. to be corrected with given timeframe depending on severity of the issue.
Compliance cycle is functionally responsible for implementing social compliance in any
industrial enterprise. An effective cycle generally include the following issues.

Principles of Social Compliance

Social compliance follows a set of standards, which are legally bindings for the entrepreneurs.
Local labour laws, constitutional guarantees, international commitment like ratifying ILO
conventions, United Nations declaration on human rights, buyers Codes of Conduct (CoC), third
parties standards etc are the guiding principles of social compliance.

Implementation
It is expected and a legal binding for the factories and other establishments to implement those
guidelines as applied according to its business nature. There is no option to avoid or partial
fulfillment of those standards. Even a single violation in any particular area makes the facility
noncompliant.

Verification
To identify the gap, if any, between the guiding principles and practices there is a verification
process, this is called – Audit. This verification audit is conducted both in government and
enterprise level. Generally, the buyers of the merchandises take the lead in the audit that
conducts in regular interval which can be announced or unannounced.

Corrective Action Plan (CAP)

If there are any non-compliance issues or mismatch found during audit a specific time is given
for rectification. In case of any issues with the workers, the victims can take legal shelter through
labour court or it can be solved through negotiation.

Continual Improvement
The issues of compliance are not static rather it is dynamic in nature. The principles or the
standards are always updated and revised in response to the demand of time and situation.

In light of above cycle, the different stages of compliance like setting standard, its application
and verification process are shown in the following diagram.

Graph 2.1: Standard Formulations, Implementation and Verification Process

Setting up a standard is the first stage of compliance. Fundamental conventions of International
Labour Organization (ILO), United Nations (UN) declarations on human rights, third parties
standards like Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI), Worldwide Responsible Accredited
Production (WRAP), Social Accountability 800 (SA800), buyers’ Codes of Conduct (CoC), local
labour and other relevant laws are the guiding principles for standard setting. The facilities
engaged in the supply chain are to apply those standards for the wellbeing of the workers, to
protect brand value and to ensure customers pride. There are multiple agencies like buyers
representative, third party auditors; government authorities who are responsible to verify the
application process.

Analytical Framework of Social Compliance

Social compliance in readymade garments industry is very much dependent of internal and
external factors. To be non-compliant, factory alone may not be responsible as there are some
issues beyond factory’s control. The more issues go beyond the factory control, the more
possibility is to be non-compliant. Compliance should not be considered as an isolated issue of
the industry rather this is very much a holistic phenomenon. However, based on the foregoing
discussion an analytical framework of social compliance can be drawn as below where legal
frame works, policies, pressure, information, resources, environment, feedback etc have
important role.

Legal Framework
Legal framework includes laws, public policies, duties and authorities of government agencies
and regulatory bodies etc. The major difference between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
and Social compliance lies within its legal obligation. Social compliance is a legal obligation for
the corporation; on the contrary, CSR is a voluntary initiative of the company. The legal
framework of social compliance includes:
1. Constitutional guarantee –the constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, the
highest law of the state, is the best safeguard to ensure and protect human rights.
2. International commitment –Ratifying ILO core conventions and adopting UN’s universal
human rights declaration Bangladesh has affirmed its international commitment towards
workers safety and rights.
3. Statutory obligation – Bangladesh Labour Law (BLL) – 2006 is a statutory guideline for
social compliance in work places.
Under the legal framework, the four core standards and fundamental principles of ILO to ensure
the rights at works for the workers are as follows –

1. Freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining
2. Elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour
3. Effective abolition of child labour
4. Elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation
Buyers’ Codes of Conduct
All the apparel brands have developed their codes of conduct throughout their supply chain in
line with universal declaration of human rights, ILO conventions, and companies’ policies on
social responsibility. Factory has to sign the contract with respective buyers to comply with their
codes.

Stakeholders’ Pressure
Social compliance is a mandatory precondition to be fulfilled by the manufacturers. But the
practice of social compliance did not develop within the industry, rather the sector was
compelled to practice legal and ethical issues, for the sake of its business continuation, and that
was due to buyers’ pressure. Pressure as an input of social compliance can be viewed into two
aspects – Support and Opposition. Equally applicable to all over the world throughout its supply
chain can be considered as support pressure while following aspects of compliance are viewed as
opposition

 Multiple codes of conducts with continual revision

 Political inclination of labour leaders, workers federations
 Reduction of product price
 Unplanned growth and lack of unity among the manufacturers
Environment – Internal and External
Organization works in a particular environment and organizational activities are highly
influenced and affected by the environment. Social compliance in the workplace depends on both
internal and external environment. Internal Environment includes management system, workers
 behavior, owners attitude, organizational culture, norms and value while the external
environment comprises Infrastructure, political stability, socio-economic condition, competition,
demand etc. These are discussed below:

Internal Environment
1. Management system: The management of an organization plays a vital role in
maintaining discipline of a company. If a company possesses a strong management system that
can both satisfy the employee and the customer meaning that half of the challenge of social
compliance is met. Worker or employee satisfaction is of high importance in social
compliance.
2. Workers behavior: It is not only the responsibility of the management to maintain
discipline or think for the company, the workers of the company are also an element of social
compliance. If the workers do not have a positive behavior towards the company the company
cannot be compliant socially.
3. Owner’s attitude: This is probably the most important thing to imply social compliance
in a company. The owners need to understand the importance of social compliance and
willingly work to achieve it. Otherwise no matter how strong the management is or how
capable the workers are social compliance will not be found there.
4. Organizational culture: The culture of an organization has a great influence over its
employees. A person blends with the culture of the organization and also contributes to enrich
it by practicing the culture properly.
5. Norms and values: The ideology of a company in general and their norms and values are
crucial factor for social compliance. A company without a value or norms cannot go further
because it ultimately leads them to nowhere since they don’t have any vision to achieve.
External Environment
1. Infrastructure: It is very important for a company to have the necessary infrastructure.
Having sufficient facility for the employees and for the production purpose helps the company
to grow in pace. This is the tangible factor effecting the requirements of social compliance.
2. Political stability: Political power structure in other words political stability of a country
plays a vital role in social compliance. There are many countries where the political situation
is not stable at all, a company cannot achieve the target of social compliance with weak
political governance or disturbed political situation. It is the duty of a nation to maintain
political stability to ensure economic growth.
3. Socio-economic condition: Socio economic condition of a country is a vital element to
address social compliance in a proper manner. Each country has different socio economic
conditions and their economy depends on their resources and ability to explore those. The
society of a country is closely related to its economy. For the effectiveness of social
compliance it is a must to consider the socio economic condition of that country.
4. Competition: There is no business without competition especially in the RMG sector.
The companies pay more attention to compete with their rival companies and forget to fulfill
the promises they have with their employees. This should be avoided and a transparent
competition should exist in market. The government of a country has a role to play here.
5. Demand: Demand for product is another external issue that influences social compliance.
In RMG sector there are seasonal demands sometimes for particular product, so the companies
do not pay much attention to maintain a good environment of working and thus restricts social
compliance. But this situation should be removed and the companies should pay equal
attention to social compliance.
Feedback
Without knowing the feedback social compliance cycle is not completed. Buyers’ and third party
audit, inspection by government’s regulatory agencies, interviewing the workers are the common
tools of feedback. To know the existing status on compliance feedback from the workers, owners
and buyers are important. A congenial environment and responsiveness to the feedback is
necessary in maintaining social compliance. So it should be taken into account very seriously
and by practicing it in a proper manner the implementation of social compliance will be
successful.

Conclusion
Social Compliance is a set of standard on workers’ rights and working condition along with
environmental consideration. Law of the country, ILO conventions, UN declaration on human
rights and international best practices are the principles of social compliance. It’s a business
driven program applied in the whole supply chain. The business needs to be ensured that every
manufacturing unit in the supply chain follows both locally and internationally recognized
standards, rules and laws on labour.

The implementation and practices of social compliance are highly dependent on both internal
and external factors.  In other words social compliance is a matter, which is subject to certain
given conditions. Any single violation can spoil the entire effort. Compliance factors can be
divided into two parts. One depends on managements’ willingness and affordability of resources
and the other sometimes goes beyond factories’ control. The more the issues go beyond factories
control, the more difficult the task of compliance becomes. Social compliance depends on
supporting and maintaining proper policy guidelines as well as its governance mechanism. All
these issues constitute an analytical framework for studying the practices and status of social
compliance in the RMG sector. The nature of the issues  are molded by a number of  phenomena 
like the growth, size, factors behind the growth, volume of business and profit as well as  its
contribution in socio economic development.

Chapter III
Readymade Garment (RMG) Industry in Bangladesh
Introduction
From the history it is found that the exclusive Bengal product Muslin was very famous from the
time of pre-colonial Bengal. The Mughals made it more popular amongst the European traders.
First it was traded to Europe during the 17th and early 18th century; but soon after the Mughal rule
collapsed, the political turmoil had completely destroyed its glory and pride and literally it was
exploited during the British period. Muslin soon became a very mysterious and glorious past
property that we possessed. After the glorious time of Muslin Jute became the next pride of
Bengal. During the 20th century, about 80% of the world’s jute used to be produced in
Bangladesh. Considering its high cash value, jute (natural fiber with silky shine and golden
color) was called the “golden fiber of Bangladesh”. Jute had earned around 68% of country’s
foreign currency till early 80’s. However, the dramatic decline of jute’s trade in the 90s had a
huge impact on Bangladesh’s export earning which ultimately jeopardized the poor jute
producers’ career in this sector. Fortunately, the supply of unemployed jute producers from the
villages fulfilled the demand in the rapid growth of RMG sector. In the 21st century Bangladesh,
a low wage and large population base, (fourth largest population in Asia and 8thlargest in the
world) became the second largest global apparel supplier after China and largest in Southeast
Asia. For Bangladesh, the readymade garment export industry has been recognized as the
industry that lays the golden eggs. (Abdin, 2008, p.6). Even with those achievements Bangladesh
RMG has defamed the country’s image on the ground of workplace standards and safety issues,
which is commonly known as Social Compliance. During the first two decades the average
export growth of Bangladesh RMG was over 20%.  For the first time, in the year 2014, this
sector did not achieve its export target on account of non-compliance and political issues. Rather,
it is known from different newspaper reports that more than 400 factories were closed and
around 50,000 workers were rendered unemployed owing to non-compliance issues. With all
these considerations, Bangladesh is the most suitable place for readymade garment industry and
readymade garment is the most suitable industry for Bangladesh. In an over populated country
like Bangladesh, where employment is a major challenge, labourintensive industry, RMG, is the
opportunity for generating employment and is the prime source of foreign currency earnings. In
many developed countries apparel and textiles was the startup industry that helped those
countries achieving economic advancement. Bangladesh can have the same benefit out of this
industry when the issues of compliance are properly and sincerely addressed.
The chapter identifies the national and international factors behind its growth, different
generations of growth, the contribution of the sector in economy and society as a whole. The
chapter discusses the different clusters of RMG industry, the initiatives taken after Rana plaza
disaster and present status of the sector.

Factors Influencing the Growth of RMG Industries in Bangladesh

It is difficult to single out the factors behind the growth and development of RMG sector in
Bangladesh. Rather it can be explained as the result of blended initiatives from individuals,
organizational and policy levels. A number of factors, both Internal and External, have
contributed to the development of RMG sector of Bangladesh. The following sections highlight
some of the important factors.

Socio-Economic Condition
High unemployment rate, high illiteracy, surplus farm workers, (especially females, due to
drastic fall of jute export and production) scarcity of alternative jobs etc. pushed job seekers to
the towns. There was a huge migration at that time that has now completely changed the urban
organization of the city. That time the newly developed RMG sector pulled those illiterate
workforces; for whom getting jobs were like golden deer, not caring about job environment, with
lowest possible wage. Involvements and contribution of renowned personalities at initial period,
role of trade bodies, governments’ policy support can be considered as internal factors while
shifting manufacturing sector from developed countries to developing one, international trade
policies   are among the external factors. Both internal and external favorable conditions blended
together for the growth of Bangladesh RMG sector. The internal factors are as below:

Cheap and Abundance Labour Forces

Apparel industry was considered the first step of industrialization, as industrialization began with
textiles and apparel manufacturing in many developed countries. But nowhere this industry was
static or permanent. As soon as any country became developed, the apparel and textile industry
left that country. Readymade garments as a labour-intensive industry is highly focused on the
relocation of production. The relocation take place from high wage regions to low cost
production regions just like water flows down-stream always. Bangladesh continues in the
lowest wages in the region as some companies are still addicted to poverty-level pay and
sweatshop working standards (AFL-CIO, 2009, P- 162).

After the Second World War, the world was divided into two major blocks – Capitalistic and
Socialistic. The USA led capitalistic world supported by international financial and development
institutions like United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), World Bank and
International Monetary Fund (IMF) promoted its member countries to take ‘export-oriented
industrialization’. Imposition of quota system through Multi Fiber Agreement (MFA) in 1974
was to restrict China’s export quantity but to promote developing and least developed countries
of the same block. To relocate the garment factories in South Korea, U.S. gave an aid of 40
billion dollars. World Bank sanctioned ‘soft loan’ of $ 2 billion and a team of ‘specialist /
technicians’ were sent to Sri Lanka for the same reason. The Sri Lankan factories were raised
with this support of the lowest wage of the workers in entire Asia at that time. Relocation of
RMG factories in different countries was not only on low wage consideration rather it was a
political motive of the capitalistic block. That’s why it was not found in the low wage countries
with socialistic philosophy. According to socialist thinkers U.S. and its allies had directly or
covertly facilitated the establishment of autocratic rules in countries like South Korea,
Philippines, Taiwan; backing up dictators in some cases and supporting military rule in others. In
1982, the military government of Bangladesh adopted new export / import policy following the
blueprint of ‘export-led industrialization’ dictated by the World Bank and IMF. Export
Processing Zones (E.P.Z.) were set up in the suburbs of Chittagong and Dhaka, giving free hand
to the owners of the garment factories springing up there to exploit the workers at their will
(Mondal 2009).

Table 3.1: Relocation of production

From To Period

North America and Western In the 1950s and

Japan
Europe the early 1960s

The Asian Tigers – South Korea, Taiwan,

Japan In 1970s.
Hong Kong and Singapore

Other developing countries Philippines, Mid1980s through

The Asian Tigers
Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and China the 1990s

+ others developing and Sri-Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India,

During the 90s
least developing countries Cambodia Vietnam and Myanmar
The first migration of garment production was from North America and Western Europe to Japan
in the 1950s and the early 1960s. The second supply shift, in 1970s, of garment production was
from Japan to Four Asian Tigers – South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, which were
under US imperialism. The period from mid-1980s to 1990s saw a third migration of production,
from the Asian Tigers to other developing countries – Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia
and especially China. The 1990s have been dominated by final wave of exporters, which
included – Bangladesh, Sri-Lanka, Pakistan, and Vietnam. (Rahman 2004,PP.76-77).

The Individuals behind the Growth

The fast growth of RMG sector in Bangladesh was not any miracle or a gift. It was the first
generation Bangladeshi entrepreneurs who made it possible within political uncertainty, resource
insufficiencies and structural deficiencies. The following personalities have played a significant
role behind the success of RMG industry’s success:

Mr. M. Noorul Quader Khan. The role of Mr. NoorulQuader Khan, who discarded his title
“khan” in the protest of the role of the Pakistani rulers during the liberation war of Bangladesh
(Islam, S.M.E.  2015), the Managing Director of Desh Garments Ltd (DGL), the very first 100%
export oriented readymade garment factory of the country, the first member of Bangladesh
Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) was pivotal. At that time, it was
obvious that local people had no experience in making garment in the industrial setup, as
Bangladesh was not a garment exporting country. Mr. Quader sent a 130-member team,
including 18 women, to South Korea in 1978 to receive training (Mahbub. M.2016). The trainees
returned home after a six-month training period to form the nucleus of the RMG sector’s
technology and its core human resource base. Consequently, the modern factory of Desh was
constructed with Daewoo’s specifications and technical assistance with the capability of six
lines, 600 workers, and a 5 million pieces per year capacity, worth an USD 1.3 million
investments went into operation in 1979 with the first shipment made in the following January.
Later on most of those trainees became very successful entrepreneurs themselves, who are now
leading the sector. He contributed in introducing “back-to-back” Letters of Credit (BtB L/C)
system – a unique facility for the apparel exporters in the world, the non-funded financing
mechanism, and bonded warehouse system. The pioneer had died of lung cancer in 1998, after
battling the disease since 1987.For his contribution, Mr. Quader is considered to be the father of
the garments industry in Bangladesh.
Mr. Lutfor Rahman Sarkar.Mr. Sarkar introduced visionary ideas to the banking policy. He
came up with the innovative idea known as “BIKALPO” (Bishsho-biddalaya Karmasangsthan
Prokolpo) that was initiated immediately after he had joined Sonali Bank as Managing Director.
This very project created self-employment opportunities through collateral-free loans for
university, medical and engineering students and upheld the dignity of labour (Mahbub.
M.2016). Later on, Mr. Sarker worked in Islami Bank (BD) Limited, first generation private
bank of the country, Prime Bank Ltd. and Mercantile Bank Ltd. During his tenure in private
banks he supported new entrepreneurs in RMG sector within his capacity.  He was appointed as
the Governor of Bangladesh Bank. He encouraged young and first generation entrepreneurs who
were interested in RMG business providing loans with no or minimum collateral mortgages
during his services in private banks. Many successful entrepreneurs of today bow their heads to
Mr. Sarkar who always was in favor of employment, and had dreamed of the industry where it
stands now.
Mr. Kihak Sung.The South Korean businessman came to Bangladesh in 1979 and established
YoungoneBangaldesh, Chittagong. It was the first foreign direct investment (FDI) in the
readymade garment (RMG) sector in Bangladesh (Mahbub, M. (2014). Young one Chairman,
Mr. Kihak Sung is known and respected by the global apparel leaders as one of the leading
visionary business personalities in the industry.
Role of the Organizations
As a part of global supply chain, the success of this sector depends on the timely completion of
the works, free from bureaucratic barriers. To achieve the goal, 19 manufacturers and exporters
got united and formed BGMEA on 20th February 1983 (AP, 2016). During 1990s, knit garments
developed and joined the export basket (Yunus, M.  2010). To utilize the potentiality of knitwear
sector and to keep the sector ahead some knit entrepreneurs worked on and in the year 1996, they
established BKMEA (Bangladesh knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association).
The association of the owners BGMEA has been organizing international expositions on apparel
and textile, BATEXPO, one of the largest expositions in the Asia- Pacific region to promote the
trade and explore newer markets since 1989. To have the industry competent human resources in
1999 BGMEA established “BGMEA University of Fashion and Technology (BUFT) former
(BIFT). These trade bodies, BGMEA and BKMEA, have been contributing in business
development through exploring new markets for export and diversifying the products from low
end to high end.

Industry Friendly National Policies

The first government, immediate after independence, of the Peoples’ Republic of Bangladesh,
adopted Democracy, Socialism, Secularism and Nationalism as its main principles. The
government nationalized the private industries in different sectors through the Bangladesh
Industrial Enterprises (Nationalization) order 1972 (MOLJ&P, 2010). Under the first schedule,
78 mills of Bangladesh Jute Industries Corporation, in 2nd schedule 73 textiles mills under
Bangladesh Textiles Industries Corporation and in 3rd schedule 18 sugar mills under Bangladesh
Sugar Mills Corporation were nationalized. In Bangladesh, the first industrial investment policy
was announced in January 1973. It restricted the role of private sector with limited permissible
investment to BDT 2.5 million (Banna, M. H.  2014). Foreign private investment was allowed
only in collaboration with the public sector. Governments after ’75 onwards took opposite
measures to meet the increasing demand of employment, to achieve rapid growth through open
market and export-led industrialization policies.
A number of factors under government support facilitated the RMG growth in Bangladesh of
which bonded warehouse, back-to-back letter of credits, tax holiday, establishment of EPZs are
the key ones.

Denationalization
In the year 1974 government moved to private sector participation and announced second
Industrial policy restoring the rights of the investors both locals and foreigners. It enhanced the
investment ceiling from BDT 2.5 million to BDT 30 million (and later to Tk. 100million) and
made provisions for monetary incentives to welcome more investment. In 1982, under the New
Industrial Policy (NIP), 33 jute mills and 27 textile mills were returned to their original owners,
it was the most significant move to privatization (Haque A.K.M. M 2002). The process of import
substitution industrialization (ISI) turned to export-oriented industrialization (EOI) focusing on
the textile and clothing industry, particularly the readymade garment (RMG) sector (Ahad, A.
2014).
Export Processing Zone (EPZ)
Bangladesh opened up its economy in 1980s and invited foreign direct investment both in Export
processing zones and non-zone areas. Apart from denationalization of the textile industry, the
NIP created Export Processing Zone (EPZ) and encouraged foreign direct investment (FDI) to
provide employment through labour intensive industries within the country (Fakir, A.N.M. A.
Miah, M. S. &Hossain, M. S. (2013). In order to create employment opportunity, multiple
policies were adopted. Promulgation of BEPZA (Bangladesh Export Processing Zones
Authority) Act 1980 was one of them (BEPZA, 1980). The Export Processing Zones (EPZ)
authority was developed in the country to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and facilitate
the industrialization process.  During 1990s, liberalization of law and restructuring of import
duties attracted foreign investors in Bangladesh. Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection
Act-1980 influenced and motivated foreign investors to Bangladesh.
Special Bonded Warehouse (SBW) Facility
boost up export oriented industry; especially labour intensive RMG sector was facilitated with
duty exemption during materials import (Rahman, B.M. S. 2015). Under the Customs Act,
1969 (The Customs Act, 1969)and Value Added Tax Act, 1991(VAT (1991). The importers for
their export oriented industries get tax free benefit of import or local purchase for the raw
materials to be used in manufacturing of exporting goods. From the machinery to materials can
be imported under the facility. This very special facility helped to minimize investment to set up
an export oriented RMG factory.
Back to Back L/C
The government of Bangladesh has arranged a special and unique facility for the export oriented
RMG industry to import raw materials free of duty under bonded warehouse arrangement (PBL
2010). Letter of credit (L/C) is a financial instrument where opening bank is committed, on
behalf of the buyer, to pay the invoiced amount in accordance with the terms and conditions
stipulated in the L/C to the beneficiary. In RMG business, there are mainly two types of L/C; one
is master L/C and other one is BTB (back to back) L/C. When a buyer of garment open the L/C
through his bank in favor of supplier to his (supplier) bank is called master L/C. After getting
that master L/C, the beneficiary (finished goods suppliers) opens L/Cs in favor of raw material
supplier which is called BTB L/C. Here all the required L/Cs are opened keeping that master L/C
lien with a bank where garment supplier has business account. This privilege has facilitated
faster growth of the sector.

Cash Incentives
Bangladesh Government had initiated export subsidy in the form of cash incentive on different
export items to encourage the exporters of the country. According to the circular of Bangladesh
Bank (BB) on 13 July 2015 more than 150 goods and products of 14 categories are enjoying cash
incentive against their exports ranged between 2.0 percent and 20.0 percent (BB, 2015). To
promote domestic textiles industry government initiated various measures including cash
incentives on local fabrics to be used for export garments. Since 1995 to May 08, 2002 cash
incentive rate was 25% on FOB, it was reduced to 15% from May 09, 2002 to June 2003, and
from July 2003 to June 2004 the rate was 10% that again was revised to 5% from July 2004 to
June 2015. From July 2015 this incentive is 4% only. Later on, to expand the export market
government declared incentive for new markets expansion except USA, Canada and EU, under
the second incentive (Bangladesh Bank FE Circular no 12 June 07, 2010/1) with effect from
1st July 2009. In response to trade bodies, BGMEA & BKMEA’s demand to minimize the losses
after the devastating accidents, fire in Tazreen fashions and Rana plaza building collapse,
government declared special incentive for the interim period along with the reduction of tax at
source to 0.30% from 0.80% to give a cushion in the losses caused by political unrest and RMG
factory compliance issue. In the present FY 2015-2016, this rate is 0.60%.
At present, government provides cash incentives/export subsidies on 17 different categories in
varied rates. On exporting garments items, agro products, frozen food, leather goods, jute items,
fresh meat and on various items of our country, Bangladesh government offers minimum 5% to
maximum 20% subsidy so that our investors and exporters can earn enough foreign currency
through exporting the items and help Bangladesh to increase its national income.

Favorable International Policies

Hough its different initiatives, Bangladesh adopted market-based policies under the direction and
guidelines of World Bank and International Monetary Fund and in accordance with the needs
and requirements of the World Trade Organization and globalization (Export Policy, 2012-15).
Not only the minimum wage, political and policy alignment with western world favored
Bangladesh but also various international policies like multi fiber agreement, preferential market
access and tariff benefits.

For a developed country, where cost of living is naturally high, low cost manufacturing industry
is no more viable specifically on the ground of wage. But this low cost RMG manufacturing
sector was played as a startup industry for many developed countries. RMG manufacturing, the
labour intensive industry, had lost their price competitiveness due to wage factor, which is very
high in the developed countries. The high-income countries have lower contribution in
manufacturing similarly low income countries have higher contribution in manufacturing on
account of cheap labour force. No country considered this RMG industry as a permanent
industry. Likewise, no owners considered RMG as a place of permanent investment. So they
considered this sector as a primary source of income. Readymade garments buyers always look
for low cost in its production process. Readymade garment manufacturing is comparatively low-
tech industry but highly cost driven. It looks for the place where production is possible with
minimum cost. Similarly, it leaves the places where cost is no more competitive. Since it is a
labour intensive industry the major cost incurs in production as wages. So where wages are low,
readymade garments manufacturing industry will be located or relocated there.
Quota on Export Quantity
Multi-Fiber Agreement (MFA)[9] approved by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT)[10] under which developed garment importing countries imposed quota restriction in
addition to tariff through bilateral negotiations with developing exporting countries. In 1985
Bangladesh came under MFA quota restriction from USA. Initially, this quota restriction
hampered the export growth. Between 1985-86 and 1988-89 the number of firms increased from
744 to 754, which is a much slower growth compared to the same during 1979/80 to 1984/85
period when the number of firms increased from 47 to 632 (Rashid , 2006 ,P.8). The MFA
governed the world trade in textiles and garments from 1974 through 2004, it expired on 1
January 2005, imposing quotas on the quantities developing countries could export to developed
countries. MFA set quota restrictions on the large buying countries like the USA and Canada,
which shortened the export capacity of many countries like Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore,
Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri-Lanka and India. On the other hand, this MFA was
found as a blessing for Bangladesh.  The country was receiving quota facility in the markets of
the USA and Canada. This restriction phased out finally on 31stDecember 2004 under the
Uruguay Round Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC)[11]
Preferential Market Access
Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) is a preferential treatment of tariff facilities in the form
of reduced or duty free tariff rates, which is granted by the industrially developed countries to the
eligible products imported from developing or Least Developed Countries (LDC) (UNCTAD
(2011). Bangladesh, as an LDC, had been enjoying quota-free status from EU. Moreover, in the
EU market in addition to quota exemption Bangladesh was facilitated by the EU’s General
System of Preference (GSP), which allowed certain Bangladeshi products a quota free and duty
free access to EU market. The current scheme of GSP of EU is in effect since 1995. Along with
European Union members another 26 countries are giving this facility to Bangladesh as LDC
(EPB 2014).

The Governance of RMG Sector

Manufacturing 100% export oriented RMG, as a part of global supply chain; this sector is highly
involved with both in internal and external affairs. The density and diversity of involvement
depends according to the nature of business. This business is linked with different policies, laws,
rules and regulations of importing and exporting countries. Many licensing authorities, different
ministries and departments of the government, are responsible for issuing licenses, certificates, to
supervise and control this single sector. Moreover, the buyers of the products have their own
regulations and codes of conduct to follow unarguably by the manufacturers.

Relevant Laws, Rules and Standards for Garments Industry

The sector, as a part of international supply chain, is guided by different policies and laws of the
land and international organizations. International rules of trade between nations set by WTO,
Export and Import policies, customs act, labour law, national building code, regulations of fire
services, environment issues etc are the mandatory obligations to be complied for the factory.

Table 3.2: Relevant Laws, Rules and Standards for Garments Industry

International Labour Organization (ILO)
    International
Conventions

The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of

Human Rights

World Trade Organization (WTO)

Export Policy   Import Policy Child Labour

National –   Policies
Elimination Policies

Constitution of the people’s republic of

          Labour Issue
Bangladesh

Bangladesh Labour Act – 2006, 2010, 2013.  

(Factory Act-1965 Payment of Wages Act-
1936 Maternity Benefit Act, 1939 Shop &
establishment Act-1965 Employment of
Labour (Standing Order) Act, 1965)

Bangladesh Labour Rules – 2015   (Factory

Rules-1977 Factory Rules-1979)

Minimum Wage Gazette on RMG Sector

Bangladesh National Building Code-

1993/2006   (Building Construction Act-1952
    Factory  Building Town Improvement Act-1953 Building
Construction Rules -1996 Dhaka Mahanagor
Imarat Nirman Bidhimala-2008)

East Pakistan Fire Service Rules-1961/1962  

    Fire Safety Fire Service Civil Defense Act-1991 National
Fire Protection Associates-1986

Electricity  Act-1910   Electricity Act-1937

    Electrical Safety
Boiler Act –

Environmental Conservation Act-1995  

Environmental Conservation Rules-1997
      Environment Medical Waste Management Rules-2008
Noise pollution Rules- 2006 Petroleum Act-
1934
 The Customs Act-1994   The Companies Act-
    Others
1969

Standards – 3rd Party BSCI, WRAP, SA8000 etc

Apart from those buyers’ codes of conduct, ILO’s conventions and international best practices
are also needed to be addressed.

The 100% export oriented RMG business needs a bond license though it is possible for anyone to
export any product including RMG without bond and even import license if the 100%
materials/products are sourced locally paying relevant taxes to the government. To be a full-
fledged RMG exporter bond license is a must.  It can be mentioned that a factory has to comply
with sixteen different local authorities’ rules and regulations.

Table 3.3: Ministries/ Departments involved in RMG sector

Sl. Ministry License/Certificate

Ministry of Local Government and Rural

1 Trade license
Development & Co-operative

Ministry of Housing and Public Works,

2 Building plan approval
RAJUK

Certificate for cash incentives, machinery

3 Ministry of Textiles and Jute , BTMC
imports,

Investment size and approves the list of

4 Prime Minister’s office , BOI
machinery

5 Ministry of Home Affairs Fire License

Factory registration, approval of lay out

6 Ministry of Labour and Employment
plan, Trade Union registration

7 Ministry of Industries Boiler license

8 Ministry of Commerce, (CCI&E), EPB Export/Import, Export/GSP Certificate

9 Ministry of Environment and Forest Environment Certificate

10 Ministry of Shipping Port permission

11 Ministry of Finance VAT, TIN, Bond License

Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral

12 Electrical, Gas connection
Resources
To have a bond license, issued by Customs Bond Commissionerate (CBC), a business house
needs 18 different certificates/licenses from different authorities. All those eighteen
departments/ministries have supervising, monitoring, and controlling and cancelation power, as
they are the licensing authorities.

The RMG sector is governed by many government authorities, and has to comply with the needs
of each ministry which makes the legal procedures of this sector a very complex system. It seems
like if there was provision for minimizing this legal procedure this sector could flourish more.

Growth of RMG Sector in Bangladesh

Bangladesh is now the second largest exporter, after China, in the global apparel export. It took
almost three decades to achieve this status. The sector had been experiencing many pros and
cons throughout its journey.

Market share of Bangladesh in Global RMG Export

At present, World apparel market is worth about $ 450 billion. Export from Bangladesh in the
global market is around $ 25 billion. The country’s share in global market is only 5% (BKMEA
2015). With this tiny share Bangladesh is now the second largest ready-made garments (RMG)
manufacturer after China.

Table 3.4: Bangladesh RMG global market share in different period

Woven
    Year Knitwear RMG
Wear

Market Position in the Market Position in the Market Position in the

share Market share Market share Market

2011 1.41 2 9.95 5 5.6 3

2010 2.18 3 8.69 6 5.39 3

2009 2.79 3 7.91 7 5.25 5

2008 2.17 3 7.09 9 4.5 6

2007 3.07 4 6.37 10 4.62 6

Source: BKMEA, 2013
China alone exports $ 160 billion, around 38% of global export. Bangladesh has been
maintaining a very distant second position.

Product Diversification
From the very inception to recent past the export strategy of Bangladesh RMG sector was
product penetration; limited to two major markets – EU and USA. Now the sector is skilled and
mature enough to offer diversified products into the diversified markets. Bangladesh is no more
bottom end product manufacturers.

Table 3.5:Market development scenario during the last ten years

Year 2002 2011

No of market for knitwear Export 86 145

No of market for Woven Export 94 126

No of market for RMG Export 97 159

Source:  BKMEA, 2013
The sector has already proved its capacity and skills to produce blazer, suits, lingerie’s, and the
products with special items like tents, fire-hydrant jackets, sleeping bags and uniforms for armies
etc.(Knit Communiqué 2013,p.25)

Table 3.6: Product development scenario during the last ten years

Year 2002 2011

No of knitwear Product 87 97

No of woven Product 96 103

No of RMG Product 183 200

Source:  BKMEA, 2013
Trade body, BKMEA, has identified seven more potential export destinations, Japan, Brazil,
Mexico, Russia, China, Korea (South), South Africa, and named them as JBM-RCKS.

There is clear sign of improvement on market diversification from two major destinations, USA
and EU, to non-traditional market, which is around 20% now. EPB statistics show that, RMG
exports have been increasing in some 25 new destinations like Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina,
Chile, Russia, Middle East, Thailand, Singapore, China and other countries in the recent months.
Among them, exports increased by 22 percent in Australia, 21 percent in China, 24 percent in
South Africa, 16 percent in Japan and India, 13 percent in Korea and Brazil in the current fiscal
year (Bangla Apparel 2015).

Different Phases of the Growth

The present growth of the sector can be viewed into different phases as below:

Table 3.7: Different Phases of Growth of RMG sector in Bangladesh

 Stages Estimated Periods Number of Factories

Pre RMG scenario Before 1977 Factories for domestic market

First wave 1978– 1982 47

Emergence of RMG & Growth stage 1983 – 1989 725

Mushrooming 1990 – 2000 3480

Maturity stage & Diversification 2001 – 2013 5876

Paradigm shift 2013 to 2016 4222

Source: Researcher’s compilation based on secondary data from different sources
Phase 1: Pre-RMG Scenario
Economy of Bangladesh was highly an import-depended economy, which still prevails to a great
extent due to limited or no production capacity against its demand. During the decade
immediately after independence, this dependency was acute. A few numbers of people with
better communication skills and financial capacity got involved in indenting and trading from
daily consumable products to luxury items. These indenting and trading activities could be
identified as the first wave of entrepreneurs after independence. The money they accumulated
from trading was, invested in banks and financial institutions, as a risk free capital accumulation
venture. When they got the opportunity of low capital investment like RMG with quick return
those trading entrepreneurs mostly turned their attention to manufacturing entrepreneurship
during 90s. They concentrated their investment in cutting and sewing but they were and still are
not interested, except a few, in textiles because it requires bigger investment along with higher
risk. Initially, generation of employment was the prime motto as rate of unemployment always
was very high. Contrary, where getting a job was the main target, job condition did not matter to
the employees. The recruitment of child labour and the rate of accidents and death of innocent
workers from fire or building collapses got international attention and eventually buyers were
asked for ethical practices at their sourcing places. Following table will help to understand the
different phases of the growth of the sector:

There were some factories already in domestic market converted to export oriented factories
during 1978. Reaz garments, Jewel garments, Paris Garments, Ashraf garments, Baishakhi
Garments etc. were some of those converted garments factories in Dhaka. Those units were very
small and produced garments for both domestic and export markets.  Studies revealed that there
were nine small factories but only three, Reaz garments ltd., Ashraf garments ltd., Paris garments
ltd, had the evidence and they had irregular contribution to export. Among them, Reaz Garments,
the pioneer, was established as a small tailoring outfit, named Reaz Store in 1960. It served only
the domestic markets for about 15 years. In 1973, Reaz store changed their name to M/s Reaz
Garments Ltd. and also expanded its operations into export market by selling 10,000 pieces of
men’s shirts worth French Franc 13 million to a Paris-based firm in 1978. It was the first direct
garments export from Bangladesh (Maroof, A.  2013).

Phase 2: First Wave, 1979

Desh Garments Ltd, the first 100% export oriented garment industry was established on
27th December 1977 in Kalurghat, Chittagong. On 4th of July 1978, Desh signed a landmark,
non-equity, joint venture agreement on technical and marketing collaboration with Daewoo
Corporation of South Korea. According to the World Bank Report, Desh Garments Ltd, at the
time of it’s inception ’emerged as the single largest and most modern garment-manufacturing
unit in the sub-continent (Yunus and Yamagata 2012,p.4). Following the success of Desh
Garments, readymade garments, factories- Azim- Mannan garments Ltd. and Youngone
Bangladesh in a joint venture, and KDS garments, had been set up in Chittagong.  In Dhaka,
Bond Garments, Paris Garments, Style craft Limited, Aristocrat Limited etc. were established.
Bond garments was the first factory transferred to Mirpur from Jhikatola in a building purposely
made and it was also the first factory at Mirpur.   Till the end of 1982, a total of 47 garments
factories were established in Bangladesh (Khan S. R. 2009).
Phase 3: Emergence of RMG & Growth stage 1980 – 1990
The dramatic revolution took place during the period of 1984-85 that considered as year mark.
The number of factories reached to 587 from only 47 in 1982 and it increased to about 2900 in
the year 1989 factories for 100% export.

Phase 4: Mushrooming 1990 – 2000

In 1994 the number jumped to 2182. By 2000, the employment reached to 1.8 million in 3480
factories. Knit factories joint to existing woven factories. The activities were concentrated into
cutting and sewing of basic garment items.

Phase 5: Maturity stage & Diversification 2001 – 2010

Many existing factories expanded its capacity and diversified products range. New factories had
been set up with more value added products and the number of total factories reached at 5150
with 3.6 million employments. RMG subsectors developed rapidly.

Phase 6: Paradigm Shift after Rana Plaza Disaster

Bangladesh RMG sector faced many hurdles in its way to grow. The sector has successfully
overcome the hurdles of child labour issue during 90s and quota phase-out in 2004. Government
and trade bodies, both, also handled industrial unrest on wage and safety issues in different
times. On November 24, 2012 fire broke out in Tazreen Fashion factory in Dhaka. At least 117
people were confirmed dead in the fire, and over 200 were injured, making it the deadliest
factory fire in the nation’s history. Just after four months of Tazreen Fashions fire accident there
was another deadliest structural failure, Rana Plaza collapse (where five garment units were
housed) on 24 April 2013; with a death toll of 1137 workers and leaving 2,500 seriously injured.

According to the insurance department of the BGMEA, the total number of workers was 3122 in
five factories. The detail is as follows:

Table 3.8: Factories Housed in Rana Plaza

Factories Number of workers

Ethertex Ltd 377

New wave bottom Ltd 526

New Wave Style Ltd 1073

Phantom apparels Ltd 739

Fantom tech Ltd 407

After Rana Plaza accident, largest in the apparel manufacturing history, both the government and
the owners have once again moved forward in response to buyers’ initiatives and once again
proved that Bangladesh RMG sector stands on a solid foundation.  Accord on Fire and Building
Safety (Accord) and Alliance for Bangladesh Workers Safety (Alliance) – two alliances of
international buyers – have also undertaken building assessment (structural integrity, fire and
electrical safety). The devastating accidents in Tazreen fashions and Rana plaza have turned as a
paradigm shift in Bangladesh RMG industry. The entrepreneurs, even with hundred odds and
hostile situations, have moved forward instead of falling down.  But this was not possible for all
the factory owners to fulfill the new requirement from the buyers, as required huge amount of
investment. Apart from those requirements, initiated by accord and Alliance, most of the industry
leaders had taken “cost cutting and gaining high efficiency” measures for sustainable growth of
the sector.

Table 3.9 : Turning points for the RMG sector, Bangladesh

Period Events

During 1965-68 Mercury Shirts, Karachi sourced for European countries

Mid 70s State trading agency, TCB made the first export

1977-78 M/S Reaz Garments Ltd, made first private sector export

Desh Garments Ltd, First export oriented garment factory,

1979
turning point of RMG industry in BD

1982 EPZ Law under BEPZA authority

1983 Formation of BGMEA

1985 MFA Quota imposed by USA growth hampered temporarily

1990s Development of knitwear sector

1996 Formation of BKMEA

A tri-party agreement was signed among BGMEA, ILO and

1995
UNICEP to eliminate Child labour

1995 Growth hampered on child labour issue

2003 Withdrawal of Canadian quota restrictions

2004 Withdrawal of US quota restrictions

Spectrum sweater factory building collapse, Quota free RMG

2005
export with ceiling with China

Massive workers unrest,   A Tripartite Memorandum of

    2006 Understanding (MoU) was signed in June 2006 between
Employers, Employees and Government

Minimum wage declaration

and Bangladesh Labour Law
passed

Workers unrest, minimum wage revised. 2010, Bangladesh

2008 – 10
Ranked fourth largest apparel exporter globally

Fire in Tazreen Fashions on 24 November, 124 people died,

2012 over 200 were injured. Bangladesh secured 2nd position after
China in world’s apparel export

Rana plaza building collapse on 24 April, dead 1,150,

2013
seriously injured 2,500 workers from five factories.

Accord, Alliance and Pact,

initiatives on structural
assessment
Source:  Data collected from different secondary sources
Industry experienced severe accidents like Tazreen fashions fire and Rana plaza collapse, the
number of factories came down to 4222 from 5876 by shutting down of small and subcontract
factories.

Dormitory for Female Garment Workers at Ashulia

Department of Women and Children Affairs are constructing country’s first dormitory for female
garment workers at Ashulia so that the female garment workers can live in a healthy and good
atmosphere. The female garment workers will get residential and dining facilities at lower cost,
free furniture, healthcare services, recreation and sports facilities, and daycare services for their
children. The government has selected a land at Bipail for the construction of garments colony
with better housing facilities for thousands of garment workers.[12]

RMG Park at Baushia, Gajaria, Munshigonj

After the devastating accidents like, fire at Tazreen Fashions Ltd and Rana Plaza building
collapse, government has taken different initiatives to run the factories in a compliant
environment. At the 16th meeting on 5thJanuary 2011 of ‘Social Compliance Forum for Ready
Made Garments (RMG), it was decided to set up a “Garment Palli” at Bausia in Munshiganj for
relocating export-oriented garment factories. Under a joint venture initiative between BGMEA
and the Chinese government, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between
BGMEA and Orient International Holding Company on June 10, 2014. On December 13, 2014 a
framework agreement was signed between the two sides following the MoU.  The estimated cost
of the park is US $ 2.3 billion where around 300 – 500 factories will be set up in 492 acres of
land to export $ 4 billion RMG products while 250,000 employments will be generated[13].
The Center of Excellence, Ashulia

On 7th of December, 2014 the Prime Minister of Bangladesh has officially opened the Center of
Excellence for the Bangladesh Apparel Industries (CEBAI) during a ceremony held at the Dhaka
Apparel Summit organized by BGMEA.  The Center of Excellence is an initiative supported by
the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Swedish government, leading Swedish fashion
retailer Hennes and Mauritz (H&M), and the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters
Association (BGMEA) based in Ashulia. The Center will help meet the need for a skilled labour
force in the RMG sector by providing competency-based training in areas where demand from
the industry is greatest. Training will be given to the supervisors and managers on Occupational
Safety and Health (OSH), disability inclusion, workers’ rights and responsibilities.[14]

LEED Certification and Introducing Lean

Bangladesh has exemplary green factories with LEED[15] certification like Vintage Denim
Studio, the first LEED Platinum rated garment factory that produce denim products, Plummy
Fashions, first knit Platinum certified garment factory in the world. So far, 14 garment factories
from Bangladesh have received LEED[16] certificates from the United States Green Building
Council (Mirdha, U.R. , 2015)[17]
 Fifty more factories are in the queue to receive LEED certification. The RMG sector in
Bangladesh is moving towards green building initiatives to impress the eco minded buyers
globally.

The production capacity and productivity of the workers have increased over time. Many
factories have established Research and Development (R&D) section, recruited production
engineers and introduced lean management – an approach that supports the concept of
continuous improvement, a small and incremental changes in processes in order to improve
efficiency and quality, an approach that minimizes wastage of human resource and materials.

Vision 2021 and BGMEA’s 50 at 50 Target

Government has set its vision in view of its golden jubilee of independence in 2021. Among the
eight aspirations the main goal of the vision is to upgrade Bangladesh to a middle-income
country (MIC) from Least Developed Country (LDC). In line with the government, BGMEA has
fixed its export target to $ 50 billion on the country’s 50th anniversary i.e. in 2021. BGMEA has
prepared a roadmap to achieve this optimistic target. Capacity Building of Port, Customs, Power
and Infrastructure are among the priorities to reach $50 Billion in 2021[18].
This very sector has been experiencing with severe challenges from more than four decades time,
started with the elimination of child labour during 90s to devastating accidents in the history of
RMG industry, Rana plaza building collapses, in 2013.

RMG Factories in Bangladesh:  Types and Sizes

There are different types of organizational set-up in this particular sector. Depending on
production process, ownership and products variety industrial set-up is different. Depending on
manufacturing process the industrial set-up is as follows, (Stark, Frederick and Gereffi, 2011, p.
33):

1. Integrated/Composite manufacturing, where factories import cotton and do the rest of the
production process (spinning, weaving/knitting, cutting, and sewing) on their own;
2. Factories importing yarn and then complete the rest of the manufacturing activities; and
3. Factories importing fabric and sewing the garment. In Bangladesh, most of the factories
are in stage three. But in the knit garment sector stage two process is available while a few of
them are in stage one.
Graph 3.1: Classifications of RMG Factories

Products’ types
1. Woven:- nature of fabrics made in weaving form. Usually, Men’s/boys shirts, trousers,
ladies blouses, skirts, blazers, jackets, dresses, jeans, shorts are made from woven fabrics.
2. Knit:-fabrics are made through knitting machine. T-shirts, crew& polo are the common
products in knit garments
3. Sweater:- warm clothes made in knitting machines with mainly manual labour and also
automatic machines now.
Ownership types
outside EPZ, local entrepreneurs own almost 100% factories whereas  inside the zone most of the
factories are foreign owned. Outside EPZ, no foreign nationals are allowed to run a garment
factory alone, However there are few joint venture factories at outside EPZ.  According to
ownership there are three types of factories,

 100% local ownership,

 Joint venture :- where both foreign and local partners jointly invest in the same project,
and lastly
 100% foreign owned.
Graph 3.2: Factories in Different Product Types

The factories can be divided into three broad categories:

 Woven,
 Knits
From a very recent publication, it was known that in Bangladesh RMG sector, there were 5615
factories in total. Out of total units, 2723 were woven, which is 48% alone, 1383 knit, 629 Knit
& woven together, and 880 were sweater factories. (BGMEA, 2014)

Table 3.10: Sizes of the factories

Category Worker Range BGMEA BKMEA

A 1 – 500 957 452

 B 501 – 1,000 542 486

C 1,001 – 2,500 434 854

D 2,501 – 5,000 139 4

E 5,001 – 100,000 39 13

Total 2,111 1,809

Source: Collected from BGMEA, BKMEA -2014
Although the total number of factories are higher in Bangladesh but the sizes of the factories are
smaller compared to its competing countries. Out of total 3,920 factories in operation under the
two apex bodies only 52 factories have 5000 + employees (BGMEA 2014-2015).

Table 3.11: The number of EPZs, RMG units and its ownership

Sl No EPZ Total industry RMG unit Units owned by Bangladeshis

1 Adamjee 61 17 3

2 Chittagong 166 47 22

3 Comilla 32 4 1

4 Dhaka 103 28 0

5 Ishwardi 28 5 2

6 Karnaphuli 53 17 5

7 Mongla 32 0 0

8 Uttara 22 5 4
Source:Collected from different secondary data
Moreover, out of total 415 factories there are 176 RMG factories in 8 Export Processing Zones
(EPZ) throughout the country. Out of the total factories, around 95% of the entrepreneurs are
Bangladeshi nationals and only 5% owners are foreign nationals (Hossain, Z. 2010). Till today
FDI in the garment sector is confined to the EPZs only. Now local entrepreneurs have agreed
with the government’s movement to facilitate FDI in RMG sector outside the export processing
zones on condition that, those factories will produce fashion items for non-traditional and new
markets like Russia, Brazil, China, South Africa, India, Australia and Mexico.

RMG Production Processes

The manufacturing of readymade garment is a chain process, where cutting, sewing and finishing
are the key processes.
 The cutting section, due to the nature of the job, comparatively consists of a small group
of people (mostly male workers)
 Whereas the sewing section, which is the largest section in RMG, is dominated by female
workers, due to its light nature of work
 Finishing section male workers are in higher number in some cases and in a few cases the
male female ratio is almost equal.
Graph 3.3: Production Process in RMG Factories
The work of garment industry is low tech, light and feminine friendly by nature. As a result
industry, from the very inception of mass production, is characterized by predominance of
female workers.

Subcontract Factories
Apart from those factories listed under BGMEA and BKMEA, there are a number of factories,
which are not operating under these two organizations. These factories are known as sub-contract
factories. According to the Department of Inspection for the Factories and Establishments
(DIFE) official website the number of their listed factories is 3498 and the CBC (Customs Bond
Commission rate) survey found some 2490 factories, having bond licenses in RMG sector. DIFE
identified that some 800 factories are not members of any of the two bodies- BGMEA and
BKMEA. The majority of these units belongs to small and medium categories and is engaged in
sub-contracting for big factories.

Business Linkage – Backward and Forward

The RMG manufacturing business follows a global value chain. Different stages have different
values where manufacturing is at lowest part. This value varies depending on the linkages,
backward and forward, types.

Backward Linkage
Backward linkage can be defined as “the growth of an industry leads to the growth of the
industries that supply inputs to it”. As in the case of apparel industry, growth of the apparel
industry may support the growth of the textile and accessories industries, value addition process
like printing, embroidery, washing which lead to higher income for apparel manufacturers and
create a greater local value chain and more employment for the host country. At the initial stage
of the industry Bangladesh only did the cutting, sewing and packing activities. Everything from
main raw materials like fabrics to basic accessories including sewing thread were imported,
along with packaging items such as cartons, poly-bags, labels etc. Inclusion of knitwear
products, supported with spinning, knitting, dyeing and finishing, in Bangladesh RMG, export
basket retains more value than woven garments as most of the woven fabrics are imported. In
addition to knit garment other facilities like full package of accessories are available from local
source. A strong backward linkage especially in accessories items is helping to accommodate
shortening lead-time and enhancing Bangladesh’s retention of the value. But in case of woven
fabrics Bangladesh is mostly dependent on China and India for fabrics and other accessories.

Table 3.12: Tentative breakdown of local retention in Bangladesh woven sector

Back-to-Bank L/C for China, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Korea, Taiwan,
60%
fabrics Pakistan
 Back-to-Bank L/C for Bangladesh, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Korea,
20%
Accessories Indonesia, India, Thailand, Pakistan

CM Charges 20% Garments / Sewing Factory (Bangladesh)

In the succeeding years, apart from main industries, with the growth of this sector, different
accessories industries like Carton, Polybag, Label, Button, Thread, Adhesive tape, Printing,
Washing, Embroidery, etc. came up to add more to local share in the industry. The more
sourcing from local manufacturers the more is the possibility of savings foreign currency; on the
contrary, the more the dependency on import the less is the value retention in RMG
manufacturing business.

Forward Linkage
Forward linkage exists when the growth of an industry leads to the growth of other industries
that uses manufacturer’s outputs as its inputs. The final product of apparel manufacturers goes to
the customers through importers, traders, commission agents etc. Bangladesh RMG is highly
dependent on third parties, traders, on marketing and distribution. In the distribution chain, from
manufacturers to customers, there are many parties involved. The more the party’s involvement
the more is the business in risk with lesser profitability. Promotions and direct marketing can
minimize the risk and can create more value to the business.

Contribution of RMG Sector in Bangladesh

Before RMG sector has flourished, the manufacturing sector in Bangladesh was limited to small
and cottage industries only. Over the time, with the inclusion of RMG, this sector has achieved
un-parallel position in employment for the people with and without any formal education.
Immediately after the independence, in the year 1972-73, the number of total employment was
190,069 under the public sector. In the same period under the private sector the number of
employment was only sixty three thousand five hundred ninety one in 1850 industries. After 40
years of independence the number of public sector industries has come down to 103 with ninety
thousand total employments. On the contrary, the number of private sector industries has
increased to 42,231 with the employment of forty-eight lac four thousand nine hundred and
eighty. The 98% contribution of the industrial sector is from private companies. The readymade
garment sector plays an important role in the economic development of Bangladesh. As the
biggest foreign currency earner, this sector accounted for 81.14% of the total exports in the fiscal
year 2012-2013. It made up 10% of the country’s GDP that year, and if the supplementary
industries are considered, that share was almost 14-15%. Two thirds of country’s labour force
(approximately 4 million) is engaged in this sector, of which almost 80% are women. Here, it is
of worth mentioning that (with female presence in the sector different studies, government
agencies, apex bodies and individual’s studies, are showing different percentages and that vary
from 95% to 70%) it is the biggest formal sector employer in the country and is considered the
backbone of the economy. The per capita income in 1973 was $ 110, in the year 2010 it was $
751, which was $ 1044 in the year 2014. Internally the sector is providing the country with an
identity of the 2nd largest apparel exporter, next to China only, in the world. Bangladesh is in top
position in the achievement of Millennium Development Goal (MDG)- 2015 among the least
developed countries and the contribution of RMG has been considered a prime mover in this
achievement.
Table 3.13: Comparative analyses of Export value, number of Factories and Employment
Fiscal Year Factory Total Export   (USD/ million) Employment (Million)

2000-01 3480 4859.83 1.80

2001-02 3618 4583.75 1.80

2002-03 3760 4912.09 2.00

2003-04 3957 5686.09 2.00

2004-05 4107 6417.67 2.00

2005-06 4220 7900.80 2.20

2006-07 4490 9211.23 2.40

2007-08 4743 10699.80 2.80

2008-09 4925 12347.77 3.50

2009-10 5063 12496.72 3.60

2010-11 5150 17914.46 3.60

2011-12 5400 19089.69 4.00

2012-13 5876 21515.73 4.00

2013-14 4222 24491.88 4.00

2014-15 4296 25491.40 4.00

Source: Collected from EPB & BGMEA Members Directory, 2014-15
In the fiscal year 2002-03 two million workers were employed in 3760 factories and export value
was USD 4912.09 million. Adding 530 factories more i.e. 4296 factories employing 4 million
workers, just double, earned more than five times value, USD 25491.40 in the fiscal year 2014-
15. Above statistics prove that the productivity of the workers and value addition in the products
made many folds growth possible in value.

Table 3.14: An estimated value addition in knit and woven garments in general
Knitwear and denim garment, especially trousers, contribute the highest in terms of local
retention because of the backward linkage industry that has grown over time. In Knit garment
75% fabrics are sourced from local textiles mills. Balance 25% is from imported fabrics due to
fabric variation i.e. polyester and viscose etc. This is very similar to denim fabric. In contrary, in
woven tops item only 10% fabrics are available from local mills. In both cases only 25%
accessories are imported.

Table 3.15: Export Share by Products

Year Product Export Share in Total Export %

2013-14 RMG 24491.88 81.14

Jute Goods 824.49 2.73

Frozen Food 638.19 2.11

Agro-products 615.08 2.04

Leather 505.54 1.67

Raw Jute 126.39 0.42

Chemical Product 93.18 0.31

Tea 3.71 0.01

Others 2888.16 9.57

Grand Total 30186.62 100

Source  : BGMEA, 2014
The RMG sector has a profound positive impact on poverty and income of the poor, which has
been reflecting in the growth of employment in the industry. Out of total employment, around
4.5 million workers, more than 80% is female. The girls and the women once had the choice of
non- formal agricultural field or as maid in the rich man’s houses are now having employment in
the formal sector. Both employment and empowerment change the long heritage of power
structure of the society.

Table 3.16:  Social Impact of Employment

RMG –   Social Contribution Employment 41 Lac

Women Empowerment 91%

Savings 17.6%

Bank A/C 69%

Child Labour Prohibited

Poverty Elevation 12.5%

Population Control Awareness

Source  : BKMEA, 2014
Women Empowerment and Population Control
There are around 41 lac people employed in the RMG sector. Of them, eighty-five percent is
female with the age group between 18 – 25 years. Unmarried girls are becoming self- reliant;
additionally, they are helping their families. When women participate in income generating
activities, they automatically make a position for them in the family. Other members of the
family value their decisions. They enjoy a better status and freedom than the unemployed ones
and an equitable access to all family affairs. So the females are empowered, having an
employment, and can participate in the decision making process in their families. Presently
Bangladesh holds 7th position in the world in women empowerment. The RMG sector has given
them a formal platform to be self-reliant and freedom of participation.
Table 3.17: Women participation in work among SAARC countries
Country Number of Worker % Women

Bangladesh 14,00,000 90

Sri-Lanka 312,00 81

India 53,00,000 38

Nepal 52,000 18

Pakistan 912,000 15
Source: BKMEA, 2014
Bangladesh has achieved tremendous success to control its population growth even in absence or
inadequate support from the government. Employment opportunities especially for women
created positive impact on family planning and population control in the country. Independent
working women are becoming more conscious about the advantage of a small family, and have
access to the knowledge of modern family planning methods.

Poverty Alleviation and Savings

In 2000, around 39% of total population was under poverty line which has been reduced to 26%
in 2014.  The contribution of RMG sector is pivotal to eradication of the rate of extreme poverty
of Bangladesh. This target was achieved two years earlier than that of MDG – 2015.

Table 3.18: Poverty Alleviation and Savings

Poverty Alleviation Savings

Year % Poverty   Year % Bank account

2000 39   2000 26

2005 35   2005 32

2010 31   2010 47

2014 26   2014 69
Source: BKMEA, (2014)
According to a study conducted by BKMEA research Centre, 17.6% working women save from
their earned money. About 69% female workers maintain their bank account. RMG sector has
been encouraging to bring their workers under mobile banking to formal banking system. Thus
they can practice saving from their earnings. So, a job that ensures regular and timely wage
enables a large number of the garment workers to go for some savings. If a worker saves Tk
100.00 per month then it will be Tk 450 million against 4.5 million workers.
Development of Privately Owned Bank and Insurance Companies
In order to turn the industrial sector into a major instrument of economic growth, the new
industrial policy has made a long list of thrust sector industries. To support the private
enterprises especially readymade garment industry banking sector achieved significant expansion
during the ‘80s. Scheduled Banks, Non-scheduled Banks and Insurance companies were
developed as thrust sector industries. The number of thrust sector industries in the new Policy
was 30(this number is now 33 in the industrial policy of 2005) to turn the industrial sector into a
major instrument of economic growth. More than 56 private commercial banks and 77 insurance
companies are operating in the country.

Growth of Associated Industries/Sectors

Growth of RMG sector has opened up many other sectors with the direct link to RMG export
like textiles – spinning, weaving/knitting, dyeing, washing, printing, embroidery, packaging etc.
Simultaneously many service sectors have developed over time in support of RMG like banking,
insurance, shipping, and freight forwarding hotel and tourism, transport, Information Technology
etc. Every sub-sector has its own trade association and is identified as a separate industry. Apart
from above subsectors Banking, Financial Institution, Hotel & Tourism etc. are highly dependent
on RMG.

Different Clusters of RMG Industry in Bangladesh

The readymade garment sector of Bangladesh did not emerge in a planned way. Considering its
contribution, especially on employment generation, no regulation was in place to prohibit the
growth of factories in the residential or commercial shared buildings. Rather the factories were
set up at different areas, regardless of its usage as commercial or residential, at owners’ wish and
will. In the First phase, (before 2000) factories mostly were in operation in the residential or
commercial buildings not purposely built for RMG factories. Considering their locations the
RMG factories can be categorized into three phases. Chittagong and Dhaka city can be identified
as first phase cluster, while Ashulia, Gazipur are in second phase cluster and Hemayetpur, Savar,
Bhaluka can be considered as third phase cluster.

First Phase Cluster

From the analyses of the history of RMG it had been found that the evolution of cluster based
garments industry came into reality with the emergence of Desh Garments Ltd as the first export
oriented garments in Kalurghat industrial area in Chittagong.  After that Azim Mannan garments,
KDS and Youngones were established in Chittagong. Youngones was first established in the
Chittagong town later shifted to Chittagong EPZ .

On the other side, in Dhaka, there were some factories already in operation for local market
(more like large tailor houses), started converting to export oriented garment factories.  Reaz
garments, Paris garments, Jewel garments and Ashraf garments were such examples of this kind.
These factories were located at Urdu road, old town, AwladHossain market Farmgate,
Mohakhali. Apart from those small and converted factories, a number of new factories were
established in Dhaka as export oriented garments. Aristocrat in New Elephant road Dhaka was
the first export oriented garments and Mirpur became an important part of the first phase with
Bond garments pioneering the cluster; apart from Bond, Saleha garments, and Sonali garments
were established at Mirpur, Dhaka. During the same time some more garments were established
at Rampura, Malibagh, Mohakhali, Banani Chairmanbari, Tejgaon making up the first phase
cluster in Dhaka.

Second Phase Cluster

The second phase cluster was located in Ashulia, Savar, Narayongonj and Gazipur area.

Third Phase Cluster

Hemayetpur in Savar and Bhaluka in Mymensingh made up the third phase cluster.

In the time when the first phase cluster was flourishing, there was no regulation on building
safety and no restriction to set up industrial units in residential areas. Moreover, buildings made
for residential purposes were given permission to run factories in.

The scenario changed during the time of creation of second and third phase industrial clusters.
Where first phase owners, in most of the cases, shifted and expanded their factories into
purposely made building and thus created second and third phase clusters. But in many cases
they did not follow the building code, as a result the sector had experienced disasters like
Spectrum Sweater and Rana Plaza collapse.

Graph 3.4: RMG Clusters in Bangladesh Map

 Source: Google Map
Ashulia Industrial Area
During the British Empire, from the mid-19th century, Dundee, and port city of Scotland was the
main center of jute trading with the United States, Europe and other countries. Bangladesh was
the main source of the raw jute. Many jute mills were set up in Narayangonj, main river port of
the country, popularly known as the Dundee of the East, due to presence of huge number of jute
mills. In the 21st century, Bangladesh earned the status of second largest supplier of the global
apparel market. Now Ashulia, a suburban area at the north of Dhaka, Capital of Bangladesh, has
become the RMG industrial hub, as that particular area alone contributes around 30% of total
export. Ashulia is the name of a village, a union and a Thana (the area covered under a specific
police station), under Savar Upazia, Dhaka district.  Savar Upazila is divided into to 2 thanas,
one is Savar Main and other is Ashulia, with five unions, smallest councils of local government –
they are

1. Ashulia.
2. Yearpur,
3. Dhamsana,
4. Pathalia,
5. Shimulia
Once an attractive and popular tourist spot, because of Ashulia lake and vast fields, has been
occupied by two largest theme parks of Bangladesh- Fantasy Kingdom and Nandan Park
alongside hundreds of RMG and associated factories. Industrial smoke and waste-water are now
polluting green views and sources of natural water. It is mainly because of the RMG factories
that contributed in this kind of transformation of Ashulia and gave it a new look and identity.
During the period of President H.M. Ershad in the year 1988 Dhaka Export Processing zone
(DEPZ) got the approval, under Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority Act, 1980.

In 1988, country experienced a devastating flood. After flood, one road was constructed at the
west side of Dhaka starting from Tongi to old town, to protect Dhaka city from flood water,
which is known as ring (Beribadh) road.  That time one had to cross a long route via Savar and
Nabinagar to reach the place of proposed DEPZ. To avoid that long and cumbersome
communication a shortcut road was built to connect Dhaka Airport and Dhaka EPZ, which is
known as Ashulia connecting road, especially considering convenience for the foreign investors.
The then President, H.M. Ershad, opened the 23 km road construction work from Kamarpara to
Ashulia, on the day before his resignation in 1990.  In 1997, the road was completed. In 1998
again flood-water inundated many of the places of Dhaka city and most of the garment factories
including workers residences, shanties went under water. Ashulia was one of the places where
flood-water did not reach due to high land. As the place was adjacent to EPZ, pipeline for natural
gas was available in Ashulia, which the most important source of power for industry. All large
RMG groups like Hamim, Starlink, Envoy, Nasa, Islam, etc purchased land and a section of local
people helped the industrialist purchasing land considering development and employment
possibilities in that area. The price of the land was cheap compared to that in Tongi, another
closest industrial area opposite EPZ.

The labour intensive industry was booming into two densely populated areas – Dhaka, especially
in the areas now known as old town, and Chittagong. The government allowed this centralization
during the period of decentralization of administration introducing the Upazila systemin
1982.Initially RMG factories were set up in old town of Dhaka, Elephant Road, Awlad Hossain
market, and Mohakhali. Bond garments shifted their first factory from Jhikatola to Mirpur in a
building purposely made for this business and Mirpur subsequently became a popular place for
the garment makers. During 1990s when knit products joined at the export basket, Narayangonj
once again got popularity as knit garment manufacturing. Initially the factories were housed in
buildings for residential purposes in residential areas. Moreover, same multistoried buildings
were used for multi-purposes – residential, commercial and industrial. Till the point further value
addition processes were added with cutting and sewing, RMG factory in a residential area did not
face any challenge. Within a decade the concept of “composite” came into reality in knit sector
where knitting and dyeing processes were added before cutting and sewing and garment “Wash”
became a common requirement from the buyers. By the time many of the entrepreneurs
accumulated capital to buy land to construct own building to expand the production capacity-
vertically and horizontally. It was also needed to open facility for free flow of waste-water.
During the flood in 1998most of the areas of Dhaka city were under water. Most of the big
companies have their units at Ashulia. Now Ashulia alone contributes 30%of country’s total
RMG export from its 300plus factories.
The area was chosen for RMG factories by individual initiatives. The area was developed as an
industrial hub without plan. Necessary utilities including, sufficient number of roads, drainage
and waste management system in the area are highly absent. Along with garment factories many
real estate companies developed their project in that area. Almost every piece of vacant land is
owned either by a garment owner or real estate developer. Ashulia is now high-density area
where around 3 million workers with different facilities/benefits are living. The workers
movements on wage hike in 2006, 2010 and 2013 started from Ashulia.

All the major accidents like, Spectra, first RMG factory building collapse in 2005, and fire in
Tazreen fashion in 2012 in between, and many other disasters including fire in Hameem group
started from Ashulia.

Conclusion
Once termed as a “bottomless basket”, Bangladesh is now being mentioned as an emerging
economy of the South Asia, next Asian tiger etc. Now our bureaucrats negotiate in WTO (World
Trade Organization) forum where they talk about trade not for aid. Bangladesh is at the top
position in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) -2015 declared by the
United Nations (UN) for the Least Developed Countries (LDC). The contribution from industrial
sector to Gross Domestic Products (GDP) is following an upward trend if compared against the
agricultural sector. Now Bangladesh is recognized as an exporting country, next to China.
Countries $ 24.00 billion industry (81.13% of total $ 30.00 billion export, FY 2013-14) employs
4.6 million workforces directly; of them 80% are women. The sector contributes 16% of the
GDP. And this revolutionary change was possible mainly for the Readymade Garment (RMG)
industry. The country has improved its position from low-income category to lower-middle
income category with the Gross National Income per capita (GNI) $1,314. To bring Bangladesh
from a foreign aid granted country to a country that dreams of being in the MIC, the RMG sector
played a vital role. It has been defamed for several reasons though still the contribution of RMG
sector in the growing economy of Bangladesh is inevitable.

However, there is still a great need for strong social compliance in RMG, which can ensure
better working environment, and therefore better business. In the global share Bangladesh has
been able to contribute to only 5% of its capacity till now whilst we have 95% potential left to be
utilized in the global market. We are holding the 2nd position only with our 5% potential which
can be upgraded easily. China has exported $138 billion in 2013 while the same year our export
has been only $24 billion. To utilize this rest of the 95% potential we have in our textile industry
the proper implementation of social compliance is definitely going to help us. If we can
implement it we can create more employment helping the government to fulfill its target of going
to a MIC country from LDC. This employment generation will also help the youth of the country
from going derailed and being involved in extremist activities. Making the RMG sector socially
compliant and a great source of employment it’s also important to implement the social
compliance along with considering the environmental impact for this will give us a sustainable
growth.
Bangladesh is no exception for not practicing the social compliance since this is becoming a
major issue for sustainable business and business growth along with brand value and country
image. So it is equally important to study the preset condition and evolution of social compliance
in Bangladesh. The next chapter will give a scenario of the present practices of compliance we
have in the RMG sector and how it came to its present status.

Chapter IV
Social Compliance in Bangladesh RMG Sector and Its
Existing Practices
Introduction
In its long journey, RMG sector in Bangladesh has been making its way through various
challenges on compliance issues. The sector has been maintaining a steady growth rate. The
industry has ensured the highest job opportunity especially for the least privileged women of the
country. It has been maintaining number one position as a foreign currency earner for years
which eventually is helping the country’s social development, women empowerment, and
poverty alleviation. Bangladesh has emerged with the image of an exporting nation and has
overcome the situation from being a bottomless basket case[19]. With all these achievements the
sector is still blamed, nationally and internationally, for failing to ensure workplace safety and
workers’ rights.

The intensity of violation of rules and its consequences that Bangladesh RMG sector has
experienced did not happen in any other country of the world and have surpassed all the previous
records. Although the sector has achieved great success in terms of business growth, the issues of
social compliance were not properly addressed. The incidents in different times have given the
sector an identity of sweatshop RMG sourcing country, though there are many factories with
international standards.

The focus of this chapter is to identify the factors acting behind social compliance, its legal
framework, institutional arrangements i.e. governance of social compliance in Bangladesh. The
existing practices of social compliance in RMG industry, the related laws, its implementation
and roles and responsibilities of the   Ministry of Labour and Employment, the roles of the apex
bodies and the buyers are discussed in detail in this chapter.

Major Factors Acting behind the Social Compliance Initiative

There is no doubt about the sector’s contribution in terms of foreign currency earnings and
employment generation. The governments of different political regimes were very concerned
about the export growth and employment generation. But the proper attention on employees
mostly was absent from the very beginning. The governments and the buyers imposed no visible
and effective monitoring system. The prime objective of the governments was to alleviate
extreme poverty through employment generation.

The following can be identified as the major factors working behind the social compliance in
Bangladesh.

Number of Severe Accidents

When the industry had already got a big shape in size, factory building collapses or fire were
ongoing in regular intervals. Many workers, especially females, lost their lives due to unsecured
and unhealthy working conditions. Apart from the fire incidents, workers became violent at
times on the issues of minimum and regular wages. Descriptions of accidents are mentioned in
the table.

Table 4.1: Accidents in RMG Sector in Different Times in Bangladesh

Date Factory Cause Casualties
32 workers died including
Saraka Garments Ltd, one management person in
September 27, 1990 Fire
Mirpur stampede, wounded not
known

1996 (n.d.) Lusaka Garments Fire 2 died, wounded not known

Rahman & Rahman 22 died, wounded not

1997 (n.d.) Fire
Apparels known

27 died,
Tamanna Garments Fire wounded not
known

Nouvelle Garments,
5 died, 50
Florence Fabrics & Fire
wounded
Modern Garments

Sagar Chowdury
2000 (n.d.) Fire 53 died, 150 wounded
Knitwear, Norshingdi

24 died, wounded not

2001 (n.d.) Maico Sweaters Fire
known

12 died, wounded not

2002 (n.d.) Globe Knitting Fire
known

Misco Supermarket
2004 (n.d.) Fire 9 died, wounded not known
building

Spectrum Sweater, Building 64 workers died 74 were

April 11, 2005
Ashulia Collapses critically injured.

23 died, wounded not

Jan, 2005 (n.d.) Shan Knitting Fire
known

61 workers lost their lives

KTS Textile,
February 23,2006 Fire and more than 100 workers
Chittagong
were wounded.

Phoenix Garments at Building 22 were killed and 50

February 25, 2006
Tejgaon, Dhaka Collapses workers were injured.
Date Factory Cause Casualties

2006  (n.d.) Jamuna Spinning Mill Fire 6 died, 6 wounded

February 25, 2006 Imam Group, Dhaka Fire 57 workers seriously injured

Shayham Fashions, 3 workers died and 50 were

March 06, 2006 Fire
Dhaka injured.

Garib & Garib

March 10, 2010 Fire 21 died and 50 were injured.
Sweater

Hakeem Group, 22 died, more than 400

December 14, 2010, Rumor, Fire
Ashulia injured.

2011 (n.d.) Eurotex Fire 2 died, 62 wounded

Tazreen 124 workers and 200 +

November 24, 2012 Fire
Fashions,Ahsulia dangerously wounded

December 01,2012 Smart Fashions, Fire 7 workers died, 35 wounded

Building 1,150 died, 2000 +

April 24, 2013 Rana Plaza
Collapses wounded.

8 died including owner, no

May 09, 2013 Tung Hai Sweater Fire
worker died or wounded

Oct. 09, 2013 Aswad Composite Fire 10 died, 15 wounded

Sources: RISE Society, 2015.
There were 22 severe accidents recorded since 1990 to 2013. The cause of the accidents was
mainly fire. Absence of fire protection measures and lack of management system have killed
1710 lives with many wounded (RISE Society, 2015).

Abundance of Child Labour

Child labour with discriminatory packages was available. In the year 1993, RMG had already
reached at a $ 1.4 billion industry, which was more than the foreign aid of that time. There were
around 750,000 workforces in 1500 factories. Around 10 percent of total workforce was under
legal minimum age i.e. below 14. Of them 70% of total under aged workers were girls. In the
year 1993 an American television newsmagazine “NBC Dateline” broadcasted a story of a young
Bangladeshi child who was working in a RMG factory making garments for Wal-Mart stores
(ILO, 2004). That story put pressure on Wal-Mart to cancel its business with Bangladeshi
manufacturers and conveyed a clear message to other buyers, who had similar businesses with
Bangladesh.
Acute Violation of Workers Rights
The workers were not fairly treated in terms of financial and non-financial packages, as
remittance attracts more than the foreign remittance earners. In most cases, even the basic
aspects of human rights were not addressed.

The industry has experienced devastated and repeated fire accidents, gross violation of workers’
rights, massive labour unrest on wage and workplace safety etc. There was no restriction on
workers age, no control in working hours.  Sexual harassment, deduction of workers hard earned
overtime (OT) payments were common practices. Moreover, marking the workers absent even
for five- minute late arrival as a measure of punishment was practiced almost everywhere. It was
widely believed that the female workers, the lifeline of the industry, could hardly maintain their
dignity and honor in most of the work places.

Revolution of Information Technology

Globalization opened up the opportunities of RMG production relocation from developed to
developing countries to cope with the uprising wages of the labour. Multinational Enterprises
(MNEs) started sub-contracting the mass consumed product like RMG from developing and least
developed countries to get the competitive advantage on production cost. This low wage priority
did not get the attention of basic labour rights, welfare, working environment etc. resulting in
harsh criticism from the labour rights group, civil society and consumers.  Revolution of
information technology during 1990’s has made available the access of information worldwide.
Now consumers have the access to information wherever, whenever and whatever happens at the
bottoms of the supply chain.

When the wave of information technology (website, internet and social media) got momentum
during the 90’s, this fact finding technology turned to a big threat to business. Knowing the fact
that happened at the production process consumers started boycotting the products that was
produced in a condition, which was hostile to the workers. Availability of child labour in RMG
production process attracted the buyers’ attention first due to consumers’ threat of boycotting the
products.

Social Compliance Initiatives in Bangladesh RMG Sector

Severe accidents, involvement of child labour and acute violation of workers’ rights created an
objective situation for social compliance initiatives in Bangladesh RMG sector. Access to
information on account of information revolution there was nothing to hide about the working
conditions and workers’ rights. To eliminate unethical business behavior pressures from
consumers, human rights groups, and several international organizations like International
Labour Organization (ILO) washigh.
Child Labour Elimination Program
In Bangladesh the initiative of Social Compliance begun with a tri-party Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) on elimination of child labour from the sector. Singing this MOU is
considered as the first initiative on Social Compliance.

Democrat senator Tom Harkin first proposed a bill in the US congress in 1992 (commonly
known as Harkin’s bill) to prohibit the import of products that had been produced abroad with
child labour. The Department of Labour’s Bureau of International Labour Affairs (ILAB)
established a special unit in 1993 for research and published a report on the use of child labour
worldwide. BGMEA announced a self-declared deadline to make the industry free from child
labour by 31 October 1994. In July 4, 1995, a tri-party Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)
was signed among BGMEA, ILO AND UNICEP endorsed by Government of Bangladesh and
US embassy was an observer to dismiss and rehabilitate those under-aged workers with basic and
technical education and stipend. UNICEF took the lead of education while ILO got engaged in
monitoring and verification, which was fully functioning by late 1996 (Brooks, E. 2007). Almost
50% of the total business was from US market.  Single country dependency compelled BGMEA,
following the Harkin’s bill, to initiate child removal program from the workplaces in conformity
to Bangladesh factory act 1965, which declared that any employment under 14 is illegal (ILO,
2004).

Monitoring for a Sustainable Program

From December 1996, twelve four-member (2 from ILO, 1 from BGMEA and 1 from
government) monitoring teams were in operation. According to BGMEA around 2400 – 2500
factories were running during that period. Depending on the scale of violations factories were
graded as A, B, C. The grade A represented the factories with no child labour. The second MoU
was signed in July 2000 focusing on sustainability and to develop long-term response to the
problem of child labour monitoring in the garment industry.

The monitoring and verification team inspected “A” graded factories in every 6 months interval,
B graded factories in every 2 months and it was every month for C graded factories. Any factory
had three consecutive clear inspections, it was moved to a higher grade. Over the period, steady
increases in factories in grade A were found.  In 1997, 42% factories turned into graded A, it was
89% in 2001 and by 2003 it was 92%. It was clearly acknowledged that the monitoring and
verification system had been effective in removing and preventing child labour from the garment
factories (ILO, 2006).

Impact of the Elimination Program

From initial survey, 32000 children below 14 were removed from the factories and were given
skill development training[20]. UCEP[21], Singer Bangladesh[22] and H & M[23] provided
technical support and training while BRAC (Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee), the
largest development organization in the world and GSS (Gono Shahajjo Sangstha) provided them
with informal education. Every child was getting BDT 300/month as stipend with free education
materials. Social Investment Bank Ltd (SIBL) which is now known as Social Islami Bank Ltd
had been disbursing the money among those children.  This project continued till 1999.

There was another program named “Earn and Learn” for the boys who were between the age of
15 – 17 years. Around 15000 adolescent workers were engaged in both school and job. They
used to study in schools up to 12:00 noon and then joined their jobs in factories.

Initiatives by ILO, Dhaka 

From October 1999, ILO Dhaka office started working on core components of social compliance
like child labour, forced labour, discrimination, working hour, wages, freedom of association,
management system with garment factories under the project “Improving labour standard for the
RMG industries of Bangladesh”. To assess the labour and factory conditions ILO developed a
checklist with 146 questions. Among 2963 factories only 550 factories voluntarily joined the
ILO project. Later the number of the factories rose up to 1000.  This project continued till
February 2006. It was learnt that BGMEA did not extend necessary cooperation paying its
portion of fund timely and fully and encouraging its member to participate in the program. To
implement the project, in 1999 ILO recruited a 28- member team along with four as support
staffs and provided extensive training program for one year.

Training for the Top Management

In the year 2001, ILO initiated a training program at BET center, Dhanmondi, Dhaka for the top
management, starting with General Manager to Director, Managing Director and Chairman.
After continuing only 4 batches, ILO had to stop the initiative due to non-co-operation from the
factory owners.

Training for the Mid-Level Management

To build the management capacity ILO designed a training program for Officer’s to General
Manager in 2001, which continued till 2005. ILO officials trained the factory management on
how to write Corrective Action Plan (CAP),

How to make appointment letter, Identity (ID) card and company policy etc. At that time no
empowered department existed to look after employee related issues.

Apart from factory management training, ILO had exchanged opinions regularly with the brands
in operation in Bangladesh. That initiative was started since 2002.
MoU among the Workers, Owners and Government
The signing of MOU on 12 June 2006 among the government, workers and factory owners were
the first achievement of workers movement following the labour unrest on wage hike. The state
minister for labour and employment, seven leaders of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers
and Exporters Association (BGMEA) and the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and
Exporters Association (BKMEA) and 17 leaders of different labour organizations signed the
memorandum. The points of understanding include;

Table 4.2: The signing of 10-point Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), 2006

Sl no Issues

1. Regret the damage of property and reach a consensus on immediate end to unrest.

Withdraw the cases filed against the workers at Gazipur, Ashulia and Savar and
2.
release the arrested workers.

3. No workers to be terminated.

4. Reopen closed factories immediately.

5. All workers to be given appointment letter and identity card.

6. No obstruction in fair trade unionism and combined bargaining.

One-day weekly holiday to be given and other holidays as mentioned in the existing
7.
labour law ensured.

Overtime remuneration to the workers enjoying regular salary to be provided as per

8.
the labour law.

9. Maternity leave to be given with pay as per the labour law.

10. Minimum wage board to be formed to fix wages.

Source:  The Daily Star, 2006
It was decided to declare and implement the minimum wage structure for the garment workers
within three months of the formation of the wage board while the other terms of the MOU would
be implemented within not more than one month’s time.

Declaration of Minimum Wage

At regular intervals workers of RMG are being focused on spotlight of international media
because of their unruly agitation to materialize very logical demand – wage adjustment and
enhancement. In 1994, the industry already had reached at $ 1.5 billion export and drew national
and international attention due to workers unrest on different issues mainly on wage. After 11
years of establishment of BGMEA, the first minimum wage board was constituted in 1994 and a
minimum wage of BDT 940 per month for garment workers were fixed.

To address the criticism from different sections of people at home and abroad, after 3 years of its
first declaration the government re-fixed the minimum wage as BDT 1550.00 per month in 1997.
The owners of the factories did not accept the government proposal, rather they demanded for
the establishment of a minimum wage board.

In July 2001, the government declared a minimum wage structure for the private sector workers
fixing BDT 1350 as the minimum monthly salary; again the employers rejected the proposal of
the Government. A member of the association moved to the High Court and the High Court
declared the government order illegal on technical grounds.  (Kamal, Billah & Hossain, 2010,
p.4).

It took another 12 years to declare the second minimum wage board, which was formed in 2006,
after workers had to raise their voice and slow down the same agitation and demonstration to
revise their wages.

Table 4.3: Minimum Wages in Different periods

Year Minimum wage (BDT) Grade Remarks

1985 627.00 Unskilled  

1994 930.00 7 Basic x 30% HR + MA BDT 150

1997 1550.00 7 Not accepted by the owners

2001 1200.00 7 High court declared illegal

2006 1662.50 7 Basic x 30% HR + MA BDT 200

2010 3000.00 7 Basic x 40% HR + MA BDT 200

2013 5300.00 7 Basic x 40% HR + MA 250 TA 200 FA 600

(HR = House Rent, MA= Medical Allowance, FA = Food Allowance)

Source:Gazettes on Minimum Wage for RMG workers in Different Periods

After establishment of the Minimum Wages Board it recommended or re-recommended
minimum wages of the 42 industrial sectors. In Bangladesh different sectors have different wage
levels according to the nature of job. On the contrary, Bangladesh Export Processing Zone
Authority (BEPZA) declares the same for the industries inside Export Processing Zones (EPZ).

Table 4.4: Different Phases of Social Compliance in Bangladesh RMG Sector

 Period and Main focused
Phase Over all Scenario
Issues

Factory compliance was not in

Pre RMG scenario Before 1977
consideration  

Self-Regulated social compliance by Desh

Garments Ltd. which was established
following all the legal requirements along 1978 – 1982   Well planned
First wave     with living wage etc. Some educated and a unique example of
entrepreneurs took voluntary initiative self-regulated  compliance
with modern and scientific approach to
human resources.

Export Processing Zones (EPZ) was

established, BGMEA was formed,
imposed quota system. Child labour was
Emergence of employed without any restriction and
1983 – 1989     Child labour
RMG &   Growth female workers were facing hurdles.
elimination  
stage   Sector experienced fatal fire accident in
1990 at Saraka Garments Ltd, Mirpur, 32
workers died including one of the owners
and director.

Sector experienced numbers of fire

accidents and workers lost their lives.
Restriction came on child labour
recruitment.   Minimum wage was
declared in 1994. Role of the buyers and 1990 – 2000     Child labour
Mushrooming     government on compliance was not elimination and Minimum
visible.  ILO, Dhaka provided training on wage
compliance issue.  Child labour, Forced
labour, Long working hours, Vulnerable
situation of female workers No minimum
wage, No regular wage

Massive workers unrest on wage and

safety issue, revisions of minimum wage,
Bangladesh labour law -2006 was passed,  
2001 – 2013   Minimum
Maturity stage   & The role of the buyers and apex bodies,
wage, Fire safety and
Diversification   BGMEA/BKMEA, on compliance was
working conditions  
routine, concentrated mainly conducting
audit and training, in contrary government
had only passive role.

Paradigm shift     Emergence of Accord, Alliance, Pact. 2013 to 2016   Minimum

Compliance encompasses electric and wage, Fire safety, building
 building safety. Both buyers and
government started turning themselves in integrity, Environment
active role on compliance issue. issues, trade unions, human
Entrepreneurs turned their factories into trafficking etc.
green certified LEED
Social compliance is a dynamic concept. The social compliance initiative in Bangladesh RMG
sector started to eliminate child labour. After Tazreen fashions and Rana plaza disasters the main
focus areas were to ensure fire safety and building integrity.

Legal Framework of Social Compliance at Work Place

The legal framework includes laws, public policies, duties and authorities of government
agencies and regulatory bodies etc. The major difference between Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) and Social compliance lies within its legal obligation. Social compliance is
a legal obligation for the business; on the contrary, CSR is a voluntary initiative of the company.
Every industry has to maintain some legal procedures endorsed by the laws of the land. As an
export oriented industry, RMG, has to go through some legal procedures which differentiate the
sector from others. The legal framework of social compliance includes: a) Constitutional
guarantee b) International commitment c) Statutory obligation d) Buyers CoC e) Third party
standards.

Constitutional Guarantees
The constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, the highest law of the state, is the best
safeguard to ensure and protect human rights.The Constitution of the People’s Republic of
Bangladesh was adopted by the parliament on 4th November, 1972 (the day is observed as the
constitution day) and it was effective from December 16, 1972 on the first anniversary of the
“victory day” of Bangladesh. The constitution is to protect and respect human rights.
Bangladeshi citizens have 23 fundamental rights under the Constitution of Bangladesh, Part 3,
and Articles 26 to 47A (GOB, 1972). Equality before law, no discrimination on grounds of
religion etc. along with prohibition of forced labour, freedom of association are the others
fundamental rights.
ILO Conventions Ratified by Bangladesh
Ratifying ILO core conventions and adopting UN’s universal human rights declaration
Bangladesh has affirmed its international commitment towards workers safety and rights.
Bangladesh has been a member country of International Labour Organization since 22 June 1972
and has ratified 34 ILO Conventions including seven fundamentals in three different categories
(Dina I. J. 2015) : –

 7 fundamental conventions out of 8,

 2 governance conventions out of 4,
 25 technical conventions out of 177
Out of eight fundamental conventions of International Labour Organization (ILO) Bangladesh
has ratified 6 till 2000. The ratified conventions were on -forced labour, freedom of association,
right to organize and collective bargaining, equal remuneration, discrimination. In the year 2001
Bangladesh ratified one more fundamental convention i.e. worst form of child labour.
Bangladesh also ratified UN convention on the rights of children.

Table 4.5: Eight Fundamental Conventions of ILO

Convention No and Ratification by
SL. Convention on
Year Bangladesh

1 C029, 1930 Forced Labour June 22,  1972

2 C105, 1957 Abolition of Forced Labour Convention June 22,  1972

Freedom of Association and Protection of

3 C087, 1948 June 22,  1972
the Right to Organize

Right to Organize and Collective

4 C098, 1949 June 22,  1972
Bargaining Convention

Discrimination (Employment and

5 C111, 1958 June 22,  1972
Occupation)

6 C100, 1951 Equal Remuneration Jan 28, 1998

7 C182, 1999 Worst Forms of Child Labour Mar 12, 2001

The Convention 138, Minimum Age not yet ratified by the government of Bangladesh. Within
the eight fundamental conventions, there are four main areas, they are –

1. Freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;
2. The elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour;
 The effective abolition of child labour and
1. The elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.
Under the legal framework, the scope of the present study is on these four core standards and
fundamental principles of ILO. Apart From ILO Conventions, in the year 1948, the United
Nation declares a set of 30 common standards on Human Rights, applicable universally for all
the people of its member states.

Third Parties Standards on Social Compliance

As a single largest importing country, USA initiated child labour elimination from
manufacturing process through Harkins bill in 1992 and formulated guidelines for the buyers and
importers through Apparel Industry Partnership’s Agreement in 1996. As a result, apart from
international commitments and national statutory framework there are social compliance
standards formulated by different non-governmental, international organizations commonly
known as third parties.

These standards are also derived from ILO conventions, UN’s Universal Declaration on human
rights, international best practices. In real field the social compliance standards are measured
based on those third party standards. On behalf of the buyers, under the membership of their
platforms, this third party conducts the social compliance audits and issues the certificates or
approvals for production of their member buyers. There are different accepted audit standards by
different brands. They are

Table.4.6: Common third party standards

Standard Year

SA8000 – Social Accountability International (SAI) 1997

Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production(WRAP) 2000

The Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) 2003

Only WRAP and SA8000 certify the factories, whereas FLA certifies brands, not factories. Over
the period these standards have upgraded its codes in response to global and country specific
crisis. It can be mentioned that, building and electrical safety was not even on buyers’ checklist
until Tazreen fashions fire and Rana Plaza collapse.

Buyers Codes of Conduct (CoC)

Beyond international organizations, national laws or third party standards, every buyer has their
own codes of conduct based on organizational Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policies
and commitments towards humanities, societies most importantly for their customers.

The buyers CoCs cover social, technical, security and environmental aspects; hence, for audits
against buyers CoCs, suppliers usually face the audits in all the areas. Most buyers outsource
third party auditors such as international inspection and testing agencies like Société Générale de
Surveillance (SGS), International Talent Support (ITS), Bureau Varitus (BV) etc. Most of the big
companies have branch offices in their sourcing countries and with their own auditors directly
audit their suppliers. The auditing modalities vary from buyer to buyer.

Demand for Legal Reforms and role of the Governments

A consolidated and unified version of labour laws was a crying need to protect the workers’
rights and to ensure safe working condition of this huge sector. During 90’s the employees and
trade union federations placed a demand to the government to simplify labour laws to make a
comprehensive but single labour act. The government responded to the same and formed
“National Labour Law Commission in 1992 consisting of 38 members headed by Justice Abdul
Kuddus Chowdhury. A questionnaire was framed by the Commission and sent to the different
stake holders i.e. the employers, workers, collective bargaining agency (CBA) leaders, Non-
Governmental Organizations (NGO) to get their views and recommendations for amending the
then labour laws. Within two year time the commission submitted its report to the then Prime
Minister Khaleda Zia (1991- 1996) on 31st March 1994. But there was no action on that report
and it was the same even during the period of Sk. Hasina (1996-2001) led government. Again
Khaleda government came into the power (2001-2006) and Bangladesh parliament passed the
labour bill in 25th September, 2006 just before her tenure ended. The main opposition party
(Bangladesh Awami League) walked out the parliament and termed the law a “black law”. The
labour leaders remarked the law as “a law by the owner, for the owner”. The SKOP (Sramik
Karmachari Oikya Parishad) observed day long strike on October 15th in protest of the newly
passed labour law. With all those oppositions the government passed “Bangladesh Srama Ain-
2006 (Bangladesh Labour Law (BLL)- 2006 on 26th September 2006, which came into effect on
October 11, 2006 (BEF, 2009).
Just after three months of enactment of Bangladesh labour law -2006 an Emergency was
proclaimed on 11 January 2007 by the military government. Again political and trade union
activities and collective bargaining were banned, which continued for around two years. Fact is
that, the frequent interferences hindered the development of a healthy and congenial atmosphere
of industrial relations system in Bangladesh.

Statutory Framework: Bangladesh Labour Law -2006

Bangladesh Labour Law (BLL) – 2006 is a statutory guideline for social compliance in work
places. Till 2006, before the enactment of Bangladesh Labour Act, 2006, no major development
took place in the history of labour legislation. The new act replaced 25 previous legislations and
consolidated the provisions of the replaced laws into a single Act. In the year 2006 the sector
already had created employment for 2.2 million workers in its 4220 units.

Table 4.7: Core areas of social compliance based on Bangladesh Labour Law -2006
Core areas Contents Legal provisions

Issuance of appointment letter,

Appointment letter, Service
Employment identify card, and maintain service
book(5 & 6)
book are must

No child is allowed to any form

Child and Adolescent
of work, An adolescent with
(34)
certain terms and conditions
 48 hours per week: 8 hours a
day, 6 days week, Overtime
should not exceed 12 hours a
Working Hours week, Must not exceeded an
(100 )   Holidays average of 57 hours per week in
(103) Leave (115- a given 12 month period. At
118)     least 11 days paid festival
holidays, 10 days Casual , 14
days Sick and Annual leave
1/18 days

Maternity benefits 8 weeks + 8 weeks leave with

(45- 50) payment

Within 7 working days of next

Wage and payments  
month as declared by wage
(120-137)
board

Termination, Discharge,
Separation from Dismissal, Retrenchment,  –
Employment (20 – Resignation, Retirement on
28) completion 25 years of service
or 60 years old

Appointment of welfare officer,

formation of safety committee, 
Welfare officer, safety
Welfare and Social Compulsory group insurance, First
committee, Group insurance,
Security aid appliance, day care center,
(89 – 99)
washing facilities, canteens,
shelters

Service benefits, provident

Social Security
fund, workers welfare fund

factory must be kept clean,

adequate ventilation and
temperature, safe structures, fire
Health, Hygiene and Health and hygiene   (51-60) equipment, emergency exit,
Safety Safety (61 – 78)   drinking water, separate and
adequate toilets and washroom.
Personal protective equipment
(PPE)

Right to form and to join trade

Labour Relations Trade Union   (176) union of their own choice without
previous authorization

Collective bargaining Trade union shall be deemed to

 be collective bargaining agent
while there is only one trade
union. In case of more than one
(202)  
trade unions, collective
bargaining agent will be elected
by secret ballot

There should be 1 participatory

committee. This committee will
Participatory
comprise equal number of
Committee   ( 205)
members representing the
owner and the workers

The competent authority may

Power of entry, inspection  
Enforcement enter , inspect and examine any
(281)
undertaking at any reasonable time

Whoever refuses or fails to

Penalty and
comply with an order passed by
procedure (283 –
the labour court shall be
316)
punishable

Government may appoint a

Director of labour director of labour , a chief
(317) inspector for the purpose of the
Act

Chief Inspector (318)

As a part of global supply chain, RMG manufacturing is subject to acceptance of CoCs set by the
buyers on different aspects on social and technical towards labour standards and decent working
condition in work places.

Institutional Arrangement and Existing Practices

The different implementing agencies under the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MOLE) are
responsible to ensure workers welfare, health and safety. They are also responsible to uphold
workers’ rights specified in the Bangladesh labour law – 2006. Apart from public there are the
apex bodies of the industry like BGMEA and BKMEA who are the membership authority, have
certain roles to play. Finally, the buyers of the products have their strong vigilance on this
specific area, social compliance, throughout their supply chain.

No matter whatever the policies and laws are formulated to back up the sector, if those are not
implemented, all efforts will go in vein. “Only policy making and formulation of favorable rules
and regulations cannot ensure reducing uncertainties arising from these weaknesses. Government
and all concerned decision making bodies must put their sincere and utmost efforts towards
developing ways through which effective implementation of rules and regulation is possible”
(Begum and Ahmed, 1999, p.17). Now, obviously questions arise on its governance system and
how it works. Institutional arrangement implementing social compliance i.e. existing practices in
the RMG factories can be viewed from two broad perspectives –

Public i.e. Government b) Private i.e. Buyers, Apex bodies, third party audits. Ensuring
employment opportunity and protection of the employees are among the prime responsibilities of
any government. Moreover, to protect their goodwill and to continue business growth, buyers
take the initiative to ensure that, considering weak governance from the governments of the
sourcing countries in the developing world. Social compliance at the manufacturers end, within
their supply chain, is one of the prime conditions before commencing any business relationship.

Graph 4.1: Governance System of Social Compliance

The Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE)

The Department of Inspection of Factories and Establishment (DIFE) under the Ministry of
Labour and Employment (MOLE) is the legal authority to implement labour law. This
department is responsible for issuance of factory license for ensuring workers’ rights and health
and safety issues (DIFE, 2016).

The Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE) started its journey in
1970 as an independent body to comply with the ILO convention 81, for ensuring welfare, safety
and health of the workers in various sectors of the country as the enforcing agency of Bangladesh
labour law. There are four divisional offices including Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna and Rajshahi
along with its head quarter in Dhaka.

There are thousands of factories of different types and sizes, shops and establishments where
millions of workers are employed.  At present, only in garment sector, total numbers of factories
are 6165. Among them 3580 factories are under the membership of BGMEA and it is 1885
against BKMEA while non-member factories are 700 in number.
 Table 4.8: Manpower of the DIFE
Class Total post Existing Vacant

1st 75 36 39

2nd 25 20 5

3rd 152 85 67

4th 62 43 19

  314 184 130

The department has: –

 36 first class officers against 75 sanctioned posts

 20 second class officers against 25 sanctioned posts
 85 third class employees against 152 sanctioned posts
 43 fourth class employees against 62 sanctioned posts
A very meager number of employees compared to the total number of factories, shops and
commercial establishments. [24]

With Very limited resources & insufficient technical knowhow DIFE is responsible for the
largest sector licensing and certification, where the responsibility is beyond their capacity.

Department of Labour (DOL)

The main functions of the department are to register trade unions and federations of trade unions,
conduct secret ballot for determination of collective bargaining agents, deal with labour disputes
to ensure industrial peace in the interest of increased productivity (DOL, 2016).

Table 4.9: Manpower in labour department according to classification

SL. Class Present Total Vacancies

1 1st Class (gazette) officers 121 43

2 2nd Class (gazette) officers 57 23

3 3rd Class employees 318 56

4 4th Class employees 216 06

  Total 712 128

As on May 2015, there are 3,228 trade unions under thirty different sectors under Dhaka
division.
 Out of which total workers trade union is 2,606
 Owners trade union is 580
 The number of federations is 42.
Among 2,606 workers trade unions the number of trade union in RMG sector is 373. Against
those number of trade unions there exist six officers against 10 sanctioned posts and twenty-six
employees against thirty-one posts.

Labour Court and Labour Appellate Tribunal

Labour appellate Tribunal along with seven other Labour Courts is a special judicial organ under
the ministry (Bergman, D. 2016). The main function of the organ is to provide justice to the
workers and employers of Bangladesh following the Bangladesh Labour law 2006 within the
shortest time.

There are seven courts & they are placed as follows: –

1. Dhaka – 3
2. Chittagong – 2
3. Rajshahi – 1
4. Khulna – 1
Minimum Wage Board
The Minimum Wages Board (Section 138, BLL-2006) is the only statutory wage-fixing authority
in Bangladesh. The department works on the people of the country who are working in certain
privately owned industrial undertakings and fix minimum rates of wages of the worker (CPD,
2013). After establishment of the Minimum Wages Board, it recommended or re-recommended
minimum wages of the 42 industrial sectors.

Social Compliance Forum (SCF)

With the collapse of Spectrum Sweater factory, Ashulia in 2005 and fire in KTS garments in
Chittagong, maintaining Social Compliance had become a burning issue in RMG sector and lots
of pressure had been imposed on the factories as well as on the government regarding the
workers’ rights and safety and their overall welfare. Since then the safety of the workers has
become a national and international issue

The government has prioritized the issue of safety and welfare of workers taking it at the top. As
a result, on 11th June 2005, a meeting was held under chairmanship of the Commerce Minister
and after massive discussion, a Social Compliance Forum (SCF) was constituted (Basher, A. 
2012). It was known, from   in-depth discussion with concerned officials concerned, that
government allocated BDT 20 crore initially and the United Nations Development Program
(UNDP) granted US$ 1,20,000 to reinforce the monitoring body with one international and two
national consultants appointed for the functioning of the Cell.
With the withdrawal of support from the part of the United Nations Development Program’s
(UNDP) after one year, the initiative lost its initial spirit.

Graph 4.2: Functional Areas of Social Compliance Forum

In order to monitor the social compliance activities a Compliance Monitoring Cell (CMC) had
also been created. The Director General (Textile) of Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) works as
the head of the cell. Social Compliance is monitored and implemented through two taskforces,
i.e. Taskforce on Labour Welfare and Taskforce on Occupational Safety.

Trade Associations – BGMEA and BKMEA

The apex bodies, BGMEA and BKMEA, have their own programs to make their member
factories compliant. The associations have a very vital role to promote the industry and the
country as a whole. They provide policy support to the government, issue membership licenses
and extend cooperation on legal and compliance issues to its member factories. The associations
also negotiate with the government, international agencies and buyers on the issues concerned.
They have a very active role for market diversification and country branding. Apart from its
promotional and negotiation activities, the associations also regulate its members’ activities on
those issues.

Table 4.10: BGMEA and BKMEA membership types and requirements

BGMEA BKMEA
Registration type   1.      Ordinary : all services +
1.  General – for Factories   2.  voting power 2.      Associate : all services without
Associate – for Buying office voting 3.      Associate (Buying House):  all related
services, no voting power

Membership category   A. Composite – Sewing +

Knitting + Dying + Others B. Sewing +
 
Knitting/Dying C. Sewing/Knitting/Dying/Buying
house etc.

Required 15 documents /certificates Required 18 documents /certificates including two

including two stairs and Child Labour stairs, Child Labour free declaration (zero tolerance)
free declaration in company and undertaking on implementation of minimum
letterhead. wage in company letterhead.
They reserve the authority for cancellation of its member’s license. Both the associations have
the regional offices in Chittagong along with branch offices in different clusters.
The apex bodies (BGMEA and BKMEA) have their independent cells on Social Compliance to
provide trainings to the compliance managers of their member factories, monitor compliance
standard. Both the associations work with development partners and agencies like, IFC, UNIDO,
Asian Development Bank, DFID, GIZ, ILO etc. for the capacity building of the sector especially
on human resources through skill development, productivity enhancement, labour rights and
workplace safety and environment protection etc.

From the list of “documents required” to be a member of any association an owner is not
required to know the business. BGMEA asks for 15 documents & certificates including two
stairs in the factory buildings and Child Labour free declaration in company letterheads
(BGMEA, 2011) while BKMEA needs 18 documents & certificates including two stairs, Child
Labour free declaration (zero tolerance) and undertaking on implementation of minimum wage
in company letterheads (BKMEA, 2016). Both the associations do not consider its own human
resources rather it seems that they are happy with their registration fees. Both the associations, in
their compliance cells, have insufficient number of members to monitor huge number of
factories, in different locations.

Both the associations claim that they regularly monitor member factories to check compliance,
run a social compliance improvement project to improve the compliance standard but the claim
does not match with the number of employees they have in that cell.

BGMEA, under the Social Sector Development (SSD) cell, has 20 members team including the
labour department. They have another six-member project, Social Compliance Factory
Improvement Program (SCFIP) in collaboration with GIZ. & In BKMEA, a 19-member
compliance team is monitoring the core compliance and labour issues.

Buyers and Third Parties

Most of the brands have developed their codes of conduct for their supply chain in line with
universal declaration of human rights, ILO conventions, and companies’ policies on social
responsibility. The factories produce garments for any brand have to participate in the social
compliance program based on their corporate code of conduct. The brand or their suppliers or
any designated third party inspection company are allowed to conduct announced or
unannounced audits to verify whether the manufactures are complying with their codes or not.

Social Compliance Audits by different agencies

The concept of third party audit in Bangladesh RMG sector came into effect at the end of 2002.
Local financial audit company Q & Q (Quasem & Quasem) first conducted 3rd party audit in
Bangladesh on behalf of buyers. Initially international inspection and testing agencies like
Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS), International Talent Support (ITS), Bureau Verities
 (BV) etc were engaged in testing and quality inspection of garments. Later on they took the lead
of social compliance audit.
Audit is an independent review and inspection of records and activities to assess the adequacy of
system controls, to ensure compliance with established policies and operational procedures, and
to recommend necessary changes in controls, policies, or procedures. The audit may be
conducted by the supplier or buyer or an independent company. Depending on the auditors, audit
is being identified as first party, second party or third party.

 This audit specially second party and third party can be Announced fixing specific dates
and time
 Semi-announced: – audit may be conducted with window period i.e. any day within a
given period of one or two weeks
And

 Finally unannounced: – any day after payment of audit fee.

First Party Audit:
An internal audit conducted by the organization itself. The auditor can be an employee of the
organization or by an independent company. The purpose of this type of audit is to identify the
problem areas and opportunities for improvement or certification. Say, A Bangladeshi company
“x” supplies garment for different companies in America and EU. This supplier “X” can conduct
audit by its own team or can engage an independent accredited company for some certifications
like BSCI, WRAP etc. to uphold its status to the potential customers.

Second Party Audit:

An external audit typically involves the customer auditing the supplier. When a customer
performs theaudits on a supplier it is called second party audit. For example, An American
Company buys garment from a Bangladeshi company “x”.  The American company can conduct
audit on that Bangladeshi company to know its social compliance status.

Third Party Audit

An external audit that is conducted by an independent audit company on behalf of customer or
Suppliers Company.

Example “X”, a UK based company buys garment from a Bangladeshi company “Y”.  The buyer
“X” needs to confirm about the supplier “Y” s’ social compliance practices. The SEDEX
(Supplier Ethical Data Exchange) is an independent UK based collaborative platform
convergence in social audit standards and monitoring practices. The buyer “X” may request
SEDEX to conduct audit in that Bangladeshi factory “Y”.  SGS, Bangladesh represent SEDEX in
Bangladesh and conduct audit based on guidelines of SEDEX. This audit company has no direct
 affiliation with the supplier or buyer and is called third party audit. Even a supplier can arrange
for third party audit to take advantage on compliance ground from their customers.

Table: 4.11: Types of Social Compliance Audit

Stage Audit Type Audit Period

When a factory is registered for the first time

Initial Audit In 60 days of registration
against a particular buyer

Based on the violations found in the previous audit

Depending on violation it
Follow up like probationary, needs improvement or pending
takes place within 3 – 10
Audit termination etc. rating a follow up audit is
months
scheduled

An Annual When a factory receives an acceptance with issues,

In 12 months
Audit then next audit will be conducted within a year

When a factory receives an acceptance with no or

An Annual
very minor issue, then next audit will be In 18 months
+  
conducted in one and half year

Pre- Pre- Approval social compliance audits are In both parties agreed
Approval conducted prior to the start of production in a time or unannounced, it
Audit factory the previous audit resulted in termination depends
A factory may have a social compliance audit conducted twice a year that depend on the findings
of previous audit. There are several stages of audit of different types with varied time period.

Table 4.12: Social Compliance Audit Steps

Opening meeting Factory management

On site visit Factory tour to check practical situation

Review documents Review of factory records and documents

Interview Private and confidential interview randomly selected employees

Closing meeting Factory management to share preliminary audit findings

Social compliance audit cycle generally includes: –

1. Opening meeting: – to explain the objective of the audit, audit requirement, process and
steps, ethical practices and expectation to the top management.
2. On site visit: – seeing the work environment practically to find out if there is any
mismatch.
3. Reviewing the documents and records, auditors try to find out the gaps.
4. Confidential interview provides real scenario of the organization’s practices.
5. Finally, auditors share the preliminary findings and ask for CAP (Corrective Action Plan)
through the closing meeting with top management.
Table 4.13: Audit Ratings and Follow-up Schedule (STANDARD Audits)
Next Audit
Production
Rating Sample Violations will be
Impact
scheduled in

Acceptable No violations 18 months No impact

Acceptable with Minor violations such as health & safety,

12 months No impact
issues record keeping or excessive working hours

Multiple violations and one significant

Probationary violation such as insufficient overtime 10 months No impact
payments for a small percentage of workers

Multiple and major violations such as under

Needs
payment of minimum wage, delayed
improvement or Future orders
wages, incomplete time or attendance 6 months
pending may be at risk
records, inconsistence / falsified records, or
termination
fire safety risk

Needs Multiple and major violations including

improvement or access denied, harassment, abuse, holding Future orders
3 months
pending of passports, downgrading, or loss of life at risk
termination risk

Egregious violations such as bribery, child

labour, forced labour, discrimination, or
harassment, Factory receives three
No new
consecutive “Needs Improvement” ratings
Termination N/A production
but not committed to correcting repeated
permitted
violations, Denied access to factory on 2
consecutive audits, threaten, harass, or
retain auditors
Source: Global Compliance Workshop Bangladesh, Sears, 2015
Above ratings may vary from buyer to buyer & in third party standards. The ratings are usually
designed for brand and business protection that hardly ensure workers’ rights. On the other hand,
one of the largest apparel trading companies uses the following audit rating system.

Table 4.14: Audit Ratings and Follow-up

SL. Grade Score Duration/Months
 1 A – Green 91 – 100 18

2 B- Yellow 81 – 90 12

3 C- Orange 41 – 80 9

4 D- Red 1 – 40 3

5 F – Gray 0 0 (Zero Tolerance)

Source: Li & Fung, Compliance Guidebook
In case of severe violation, the buyer can terminate the business facility immediately for up to
three years.

Severe violations include: – child labour, forced labour, corporal punishment and conflict of
interest.

Different buyers or standards follow different rating systems. These rating systems change over
the time as the brands or third parties revise their CoC at different times. There is a fixed fee
(direct or indirect) for each audit that has to be paid by the factory, which ranges between 1200-
3000 USD.

Corrective Action Plan (CAP):

A corrective action plan needs to submit within stipulated time frame normally three working
days from the date of audit findings. This plan helps the factory to find out the causes of the
problem, to correct the problem and prevent repetition of that problem.

Multiple Checklists:
Like audit rating system, there is check lists for audit to conduct social compliance audit.
Different buyers use different checklists. It is also not the same for third party audits.

1. For example SGS, as a third party audit company use 64 questions in a questionnaire.
2. While BGMEA, as an apex body use 39 questions format.
3. David Howard a UK based importer has a questionnaire with 88 questions.
4. While Kmart uses 60 questions.
In collaboration with government agencies GIZ and ILO the association inspects the factories
periodically against a unified checklist prepared by the Department of Inspection for Factories
and Establishments (DIFE).

The 100-point checklist includes: –

 The issues of fire safety – 16 points
 Building safety – 20 ,,
 Electrical safety – 24   ,,          and
 General or labour – 40 ,,
A factory having less than 69 points is in grade C, in between 70 – 80 classified as grade B and
the factories, which have score between 85 – 100 are in grade A.

Table 4.15: Category Based Grade and Achieved Grade

SL Area Grade A Grade B Grade C

1 Building safety 17 – 20 14 – 16 Less than 13

2 Fire safety 14 – 16 11 – 13 Less than 10

3 Electrical safety 20 – 24 17 – 19 Less than 16

4 General or labour 34 – 40 28 – 33 Less than 27

Total No Achieved Grade

85 – 100 A

70 – 84 B

69 or  Less C
Source: Compliance Cell, BGMEA
Based on BGMEA’s social compliance inspection summary report the numbers of factories
under different grades at different time are as follows;

Table 4.16: Grade Wise Member Factories (BGMEA) under Unified Format

Period Grade No of Factories % of total inspection
Jun–Dec 2013 A 470 47.72

B 240 24.37

C 275 27.92

Total inspected factories 985

Apr–Jun 2014 A 525 50.77

B 274 26.50

C 235 22.73
Period Grade No of Factories % of total inspection

Total inspected factories 1034

Jan–Jun 2015 A 1329 61.93

B 910 42.40

C 489 22.79

Total inspected factories 2728

July 2015 A 28 50.00

B 14 25.00

C 14 25.00

Total inspected factories 56

Source: Compliance Cell, BGMEA
From the aforementioned summary reports of BGMEA, it can be said that more than 25% of the
members factories are in category C and the same percentage of factories are in B category. The
factories under both categories need improvement.

Table 4.17: Factories of Different Grades

Grade BGMEA BKMEA Non Member

A 52 11 12

B 45 09 08

C 43 24 38

Total 140 44 58
Source: Compliance Cell, BGMEA
According to a survey conducted by the Taskforce on labour welfare and occupational safety on
RMG in May 2015, the findings are as above.

BGMEA Conciliation-Cum-Arbitration (CAC) cell mitigates the cases as alternative solution of

the grievances. Total 8553 cases were resolved by the apex bodies from 26th April, 1998 to 28
July 2015.
Table 4.18: The Number of Cases Received and Resolved by BGMEA During  Jan- May 2015
Month No. of cases Cases resolved Cases pending Total BDT fine

January 42 6 36 46,000
 February 47 12 35 1,34,000

March 75 1 74 15,000

April 75 0 0 0

May 80 0 0 0
Source : Arbitration Cell,  BGMEA.
It shows that both the number of cases received and resolved is very poor. Contrary to the belief,
workers are much more comfortable having their federation leaders resolve the payment related
disputes than going to the labour court or BGMEA, as the federation leaders actually deal &
resolve around 90% of payment related disputes.

Till date social compliance initiatives in the RMG sector has been the outcome of buyers’
pressure which is linked with business continuation.  Neither government nor the factory owners
took this legal issue wholeheartedly. Before 2006 there were no specific legal guidelines for the
sector. Passing and enactment of this law, BLL-2006, was not a part of regular and spontaneous
initiative of the   government rather it was the result of workers movement supported by the trade
union leaders and civil society and pressure from buyers communities. It is the mandate of the
Ministry of Labour and Employment to ensure the proper implementation of the law to maintain
compliance by keeping peaceful employee-employer relations. But the concerned department of
the ministry lack huge shortage of manpower compared to industry size and locations. As far as
social compliance is concerned, the role of the buyers is the prime, as government agencies and
apex bodies are yet to be ready to govern the huge sector with their tiny number of manpower
with very centralized nature. So it can be said that governance of social compliance is
concentrated with third party audits.

Conclusion
There is no doubt about the sector’s multidimensional contribution but proper attention on
management system was not present from the very beginning in general with some exceptions.
Even today, it is difficult to quantify the size of the workforce, male female ratio and the number
of the factories. Trade bodies, and government agencies, do not have the actual data anywhere.
Even different government agencies have different data. Poor governance of RMG sector on
social compliance issue affects not only labour issues but also it affects the total supply chain of
RMG manufacturing. This single sector is controlled by multiple agencies of the government.
There is no core authority to govern this single largest and highest contributing sector. In absence
of proper regulatory system of government, the compliance of the factories is monitored,
controlled and audited by the buyers of different countries using varied checklist against multiple
codes of conduct. As a result, even with a number of compliance certified factories, workers
satisfaction and working conditions are not improving even by buyers driven compliance system.
Rather repetitions of gross violation of law are questioning the sector’s capability and thus
country’s image is falling in crisis. Moreover, findings reveal that businessmen control and
influence the policies as the same person has two different identities – businessman and
politician. Thus impartial application of law is a big challenge. In the next chapter field level
realities will be analyzed and presented in the context of the present study.

Chapter V
Practices of Social Compliance: Field Level Realities
Introduction
The major objective of this chapter is to find the relation between the theory and the practical
scenario based on the analytical framework. The presence of social compliance in any sector is
reflected primarily through the level of workers’ satisfaction and its business growth. To explore
the state of workers’ satisfaction and business growth the chapter highlights the ground reality of
social compliance, policy framework and its governance mechanism. The study finds high level
of dissatisfaction with the present practices of social compliance among the workers but
interestingly a geometric growth of sector with a distinct gap between export growth and labour
management competency. In this chapter the roles of the government, trade bodies, trade unions,
buyers along with the major challenges and drawbacks in implementation of compliance are also
discussed in detail. The main objectives of the current study are to explain the legal framework
and its governance system in government level (Policy) and organizational level (Execution). In
line with the objectives the respondents are divided into two broad sections.

In Section A, major respondents are workers of the factories who are the main target group of the
social compliance to know the ground reality – facts and figures.

Section B comprises of the factory compliance In-Charges and heads of the factories, responsible
to implement compliance in their respective factories. Apart from structured questions an in-
depth interview were conducted with the industry experts, labour law advisors, government
officials, officials of international agencies, third party auditors, and trade union leaders and
buyers’ representatives, and others like journalist, intellectuals, researchers etc. This section
helps to find out the drawbacks in policy and execution levels. Their opinions also help in
learning about shortcomings in the existing audits/ inspection system. Analyzing the findings
from both questionnaire survey and in depth discussions, an actual scenario of the existing
practice of social compliance has been obtained.

Profile and Distribution of Respondents

Atotal of 240 respondents were surveyed (Sections: A + B) with a structured questionnaire and
an in-depth interview with 80 experts from different segments had been conducted. Respondents
surveyed with a structured questionnaire were divided into four groups. One set of questionnaire
was used for the workers who are commonly known as (sewing machine) operators, and
supervisors who are called the first-line- management in the factories. A total of 150 workers and
50 supervisors were surveyed under the questionnaire – section A. A different set of
questionnaire with more open ended questions was prepared for the compliance in-charges and
factory heads where total 40 respondents are surveyed.
Table 5.1: Classification of Respondents for Questionnaire Survey (Sections: A + B)
Respondent Type Female Male Total

Worker 94 56 150

Supervisor 10 40 50

Compliance In-Charge 0 20 20

Factory Heads 0 20 20

Grand Total 104 136 240

In-depth Interview (IDI)
To fulfill the objectives of the current study an in-depth interview had been conducted with the
people related to the compliance and governance issues.

Table 5.2: Classification of Respondents for Interview

Labo 3dr
Govern Apex Internati
Buyers   Repres ur NGO   le Party   A Othe
ment body/   O onal
entative Lawy ader udit rs
Official wners agencies
er company

10 25 10 5 10 5 10 5

Total 80
The table above shows the types of respondents in that category.

Classification of Respondents by Gender

Among the 200 respondents (workers and supervisors), 52% were females, as they constitute the
highest number of total workforce, and rest 48% were males. The following Graph shows the
respondents by gender.

Table 5.3: Respondent by Gender

Gender No of Respondents % of total Respondents

Female 104 52
Male 96 48

Grand Total 200 100

Source: Hasan, M (2015), Field Data
Graph 5.1:  Respondents by Gender

Analyzing the production processes of garment factories, Male-female ratio is found very similar
both in woven and knit garments. The presence of female workers are very high in sewing
section as the work of sewing is a sitting job. The production process in sweater factory is
different from knitwear and woven factories (Ref. Graph 3.4 Production Process in RMG
Factories).Owing to manual or semi mechanical nature of production process in sweater factory
male workers are dominating in most of the processes while around 20% females work mostly in
quality and finishing sections. Depending on work process it can be said that in knitwear and
woven garment factories around 85% of sewing operators are female, which is the largest section
of the factories.
Regarding the male female ratio in RMG sector, it is generally told that out of total employment
around 85% is females. According to the production processes of RMG factories, findings
revealed that instead of total workforces, actually 85% of sewing machine operators are females.

Respondents Grades
Table 5.4: Respondents by Grades
Grade No of Respondents % of total Respondents

Grade 2 1 1

Grade 3 23 15
Grade 4 40 27

Grade 5 66 44

Grade 6 11 7

Grade 7 9 6

Grand Total 150 100

Source: Hasan, M (2015), Field Data
Graph 5.2: Respondents by Grade
In RMG sector, workforces are divided into different grades. There are seven grades in workers’
category where grade 7 represents entry level job known as helper or assistant. Majority of the
operators are found in grade 5 i.e. Junior Machine Operator.

Span of Service Life

Table 5.5: Respondents’ Experience in RMG Sector
Years of experience in RMG factories No of Respondents

Fresh 2

0.25 Year 4

1 Year 4

1.3 Year 2

1.5 Year 4

2 Year 6

2.8 Year 2

3 Year 6

3.5 Year 4

4 Year 20

5 Year 76

6 Year 30

6.5 Year 4

7 Year 15

8 Year 10
 9 Year 6

13 Year 2

14 Year 1

15 Year 2

Total 200
Source: Hasan, M (2015), Field Data
Graph 5.3: Respondents’ Experience in RMG Sector

The field study shows that most of the respondents are experienced workers. Among total 200
respondents, 146 respondents are having 5 or more years of experience. But their presence after
10 years is alarmingly low. Adverse working conditions compel the workers, especially females,
to leave their service. Contrary, Human Resources Department (HRD) creates the situation to
leave the factory before 10-years services due to legal obligations to pay higher service benefits
to the workers who have been working more than 10 years. Thus experienced workers are to
change the factories frequently.

Analysis and Evaluation of the Findings

 Existence of social compliance can be measured through workers satisfaction, business growth
and brand loyalty. It is evident from the study that other than worker’s satisfaction; both business
growth and brand loyalty have been achieved in the sector since its beginning. The study focuses
on present status of workers satisfaction as one of the major indicators of social compliance.
Under the legal framework, the scope of the present study is based on four core standards of
fundamental principles and rights at works:

1. No forced or compulsory labour

2. No discrimination irrespective of sex, religion, wages etc,
3. Elimination of child labour and
4. Freedom of association and collective bargaining.
The findings have been divided into two phases, A) Theoretical- derived from in- depth
interview and B) Field data- collected through questionnaire survey. It shows that policy
drawbacks and the violations of existing policies both are present in different forms and
intensity; those are as follows;

The Legal and Policy Framework

Out of eight fundamental conventions of International Labour Organization (ILO) Bangladesh
ratified 6 till 2000. The ratified conventions were on -forced labour, freedom of association, right
to organize and collective bargaining, equal remuneration, no discrimination. Inthe year 2001,
Bangladesh has ratified one more fundamental convention i.e. worst form of child labour. The
chapter analyzes the drawbacks within the law, forms of forced labour, and different types of
discriminations, social impact of elimination of child   labour and state of freedom of association
and collective bargaining based on field data and in-depth discussion.

Elimination of All Forms of Forced or Compulsory Labour

Extra-Over Time (EOT) work, not to allow leave, work on weekly holidays, etc are the various
forms of force labour. Rather there are different incentives offered by the management to ensure
the workers’ presence in all the working days of a month.

Compulsory work for uninterrupted production

There are different provisions of leaves entitled for a worker. According to BLA -2006 (Section
– 115,116,118) a worker is entitled to enjoy total 35 days (casual 10, sick 14, festival 11) leave
with full wages in a calendar year. In addition every adult worker, who has completed one year
of continuous service in an establishment, shall be allowed during the subsequent period of
twelve months leave with wages at the rate of one day for every fifteen days of work as annual
leave. But very insignificant number of the workers, interviewed, had a chance to enjoy those
leave. Contrary, there is also provision (Section 117) for leave encashment if any worker does
not avail leave.[25]The followings will give a practical scenario for clear understanding:

Table 5.6: Leave Status of the Respondents

Annual
Casua
Leave Festival Absen
Leave l Sick Leave
Encashme Holidays t
Leave
nt

Responden Responden Responden Responden Responden

% % % % %
ts ts ts ts ts

15 10
Yes 13 6.5 18 9 6 3 78
6 2

No 187 93.5 182 91 194 97 44 22 98

20 20
Total 200 100 200 100 200 100 100
0 0
Source: Hasan, M (2015), Field Data
Graph 5.4: Leave Status of the Respondents, Source: Hasan, M (2015), Field Data
It revels from the field study that factory management does not allow the workers to take leave
though this is entitled by the law. Out of total 200 respondents only 13 workers had enjoyed
casual leave, 18 workers allowed to sick leave only 6 workers had the opportunity of the
encashment against annual leave, 156 responded positive to festival leave. Due to reluctant
attitude of the management of approving leave 102 workers, which is 51% of total respondent
remain absent from work.

Working Hours and Festival Holidays

The study shows that in most of the cases working hour and festival holiday remain as a critical
issue to comply with in this labour intensive RMG sector. Present study finds the following
opinions on these particular areas.

Various incentives offered to keep the workers present

The factories offer different types of incentives and bonuses on attendance, production target to
keep the workers present on time in all the working days. Moreover, if any worker comes late
even for five minutes for three days in a month, his/her wage is deducted automatically.

Table 5.7:Factors Ensure Workers Presence Regularly

Factors Respondents Opinion

Attendance Bonus 100%

Earn Leave encashment 55%

Wage or OT deduction 91%

Production Target Bonus 65%

Fear of losing job 58%

Workers are encouraged not to take leave rather different types of incentives are put to
discourage leave and various forms of punishment including wage deduction for unauthorized
absent or late are common.

Graph 5.5: Factors Ensure Workers Presence Regularly

Source: Hasan, M (2015), Field Data
Among the compliant factories, all the workers are getting attendance bonus. 65% factory have
production target bonus, 55% have earn leave encashment facility. Contrary, 91% of them claim
that factory deduct overtime or wage payment if anyone is absent.

Excessive Overtime (EOT) work

According to the law (section 102 of BLA) an adult worker is allowed to work not more than 48
hours in a week. An adult worker may work for more than that limit but it shall not exceed 60
hours in any week and on the average 56 hours per week in a year.

Table 5.8: Overtime Works

Over Time Works Respondents

12 Hours 62%

10 Hours 23%

8 Hours 4%

12+ Hours 12%

Graph 5.6: Overtime Works
Source: Hasan, M (2015), Field Data
Around 62 % workers work for 12 hours, 23% work 10 hours a day. While only 4%respondents
said they work 8 hours a day and 12% workers claim for more than 12 hours a day. Interestingly
workers prefer excessive working hours due to their low wage. They cannot afford their basic
needs with the regular wages only. All the respondents said that wages against regular
eighthours’ work is not enough for them.

Extra allowances on Overtime (OT) work

Section 108 of BLA, depicts that if a worker works more than the hours fixed under this law
shall be entitled to get allowance at the rate of twice of his general rate of basic wages and
dearness allowance and ad-hoc or interim pay, if any. Though most of the compliant factories
have this practice yet many workers do not know the correct method of OT payment calculation.
Some of the workers do not keep the record of total OT hours. Sometimes, there is a mismatch
between the factory record and workers’ record.

Table 5.9: Double Rate Payment on Over Time Work

Double Rate Payment on Over Time Work

Type No of Respondents % of Respondents

Yes 157 79%

No 43 22%
Contrary, 22% of respondents said that they do not receive OT payment at double rate rather
supervisors deduct their OT working hours when they fail to meet the production target.

Over Time (OT) work is inevitable

The factory heads were asked about the necessity of extra working hours while they are paying
double. Most of them claimed poor supply chain management and short lead-time was the
reasons.

Table 5.10: Lead Time – Past and Present

Year 2000 2015

Woven 120-150days(imported fabrics) 90- 120 (imported fabrics)

    60- 75 (local fabrics)

Knit 90 -120 days – local 30 – 45 days (for repeat order)

    60 -75 days (for fresh order)

Source: Hasan, M (2014), Field Data
The production time allowed by the buyers has been shortened remarkably over the period.
Weak and uncontrolled supply chain with short lead-time tend the factories to be non- compliant
on working hours. Different buyers have different positions regarding working hours. Since
RMG production needs to follow fixed shipment date and there are many dependable variables to
start production on time. If, for any reason the factory cannot start production as per the plan
then it has to rely on extra timework to meet the prefixed delivery date.

Weak Supply Chain Management

In the whole supply chain system, Bangladesh does not manufacture basic raw materials of the
garment. The sector has to depend mostly on imported materials. Manufacturing readymade
garments is a management of a long chain of supplies. It moves from supplier to manufacturer to
wholesaler to retailer to consumer. It’s an interdependent and interrelated process. Poor supply
chain management plays a vital role for extra time work.

Table 5.11: Reasons of Extra Time Work

Short Weak Poor
Employee Utility Approval Changes
lead supply efficiency of
Category disruption delay of style
time Chain workers

Compliance
22% 18% 24% 16% 14% 6%
Manager

Factory Head 11% 22% 17% 21% 16% 13%

 Average 17% 20% 21% 19% 15% 10%
Graph5.7: Reasons of extra time work

Without proper management in supply chain, it is not possible to comply with the shortened
lead-time given by the buyer. The number of suppliers varies depending on style and materials
specifications. There are almost 20 items required for a single shirt. A factory dealing with 15
buyers has to handle at least 100 suppliers.

From the workers and management interview, it was known that violation of working hours is
the most common noncompliance issue. Considering the light nature of work, working hours
may be extended for the sector to meet the shortened lead time. If the fixation of minimum wage
varied according to the nature of work and risk of the sector, why not working hours? There is
also provision in the law [26] to extend working hours. Section 109 restrict the working hours for
women between the hours of 10.00PM to 6.00 AM, without her consent. Practically, availability
of raw materials on time is a big challenge due to weak infrastructure and uncontrolled supply
chain management. As a   result factories have to work whole night, as and when necessary, to
meet the shipment dates.

Discrimination in Respect of Employment and Occupation

Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh has guaranteed the fundamental rights of
her citizens. Different sections of Part III of the constitution mention the fundamental rights that
prohibit any form of discriminations and BLA – 2006 ensures equal wages for equal work and
one of the core conventions of ILO (C111) is about discrimination while convention C100 is on
equal remuneration. Bangladesh has ratified both of the conventions among others. But different
forms of discriminations in RMG sector are common.
Different Laws with varied facilities and benefits
Bangladesh Labour Act (BLA) does not cover all the sectors like – Non Government
Organization (NGO), Small and Medium Enterprise (SME), Governments mills & industries.
Moreover, the workers within the Export Processing Zones (EPZ) are treated under the
Bangladesh Export Processing Zone Authority (BEPZA) law.

Table 5.12: Different rates of incentives in different factories

Transport facility

  Factory Bus Allowances No

No of Respondents 43 145 12

   

Attendance bonus

  TK 200 to 300 TK 301 to 400 TK 401 to 600 No

Noof Respondent 2 105 76 17

   

Target bonus

  TK 700 to 1000 TK 1001 to 1500 TK 1501 to 2000 No

No of Respondent 84 34 8 74

Lunch (In addition to wage structure)

  Yes Allowances No

No of Respondent 85 54 61

Earned Leave Encashment

  Yes No

No of Respondent 133 67
Different factories provide different incentives in different rates. This differentiation create
dissatisfaction among the workers of the same cluster.

Insufficient benefits in the law

 Most of the benefits, under the BLA, are not in practice. So, the workers value on present “take
home” benefits and wages. They leave the factory even for TK 100 extra in other factory.

1. A worker who has completed ten years of continuous service or more shall be paid at the
rate of thirty days (section 27, 4b) wages for every completed year,
2. If the service length is five years more or but below ten years calculation should be at the
rate of fourteen days (section 27, 4a).
3. There is no provision of service benefits for the workers who serve a company for less
than five years.
In RMG sector span of service life in a particular factory is very short. In-depth interview with
social compliance and labour law practitioners, it reveals that to avoid workers service benefits
factory management creates a situation where workers are compelled to resign. The table (5.26)
job stability approves their claim.

Final settlement of workers’ payment (section – 30) is paid after 60 days of separation which is
cumbersome and a worker can’t afford those two months-time without getting his/her benefits.

Since the workers in RMG sector work for excessive hours a provision of recreation leave might
help them to be more productive. Calculation of month is different in different sections – 47,
117, 119 of BLL -2006, which goes against actual compensation benefits especially in earn leave
calculation. Workers classifications in different grades are done according to their job nature
which is defined and controlled by factory management. There is no provision for contractual
and part time workers. There is no common format of appointment letters.

Fixation of minimum wage

The minimum wage gazette for garment sector on 05 May 2013 was the 4th declaration of this
kind. This gazette can’t be told as a complete guideline to determine sectors’ wage
administration. It was clearly revealed from the in-depth interview with the labour law
practitioners and federation leaders that the gazette itself created confusions and acted as a
helping tool of deprivation.
Table 5.13: Minimum wages in different periods.
Year Minimum wage(TK)

1985 627.00

1994 930.00

1997 1550.00

2001 1200.00
 2006 1662.50

2010 3000.00

2011 4250.00(Textiles)

2013 5300.00
Source: Minimum Wage Gazettes of different years, Government of Bangladesh
Workers are classified according to their grades. Here factory management has the liberty to
define the workers’ grades according to their wish. Moreover, the study finds that the grading
system has many loopholes which is not based on well thought and planned. There are so many
posts and positions required to run an RMG factory that are not mentioned in the gazette. It
seems that all focus of the gazette falls on the entry-level workers and their wages. There is no
guideline on how to measure workers competency for a particular grade and for how long a
worker will be retained in the same grade. These loopholes are helping the employers to
manipulate in determining workers’ grade.

Wage discrimination
Minimum wage board has classified the non-EPZ workforces into seven grades according to
their skills with seven different wage levels. Contrary, EPZs workers are divided into five
categories. BEPZA has fixed higher wages and benefits compere to non-EPZ factories. Both the
declarations are as follows:

Table 5.14:  Minimum Wage within and outside EPZs

Outside EPZ Inside EPZ

Grade Gross (TK) Grade Gross

1 Pattern master, etc 13000 High Skilled TK 11,200/ $140

2 Mechanic etc 10900 Sr. Operator TK 7,280/ $ 91

3 Sr Operator, etc. 6805 Operator TK 6860/ $ 86

4 Operator, etc. 6420 Jr. Operator TK 6440 / $ 81

5 Junior Operator etc 6042 Helper TK 5600/ $70

6 General Operator etc 5678 Apprentice TK 4480/ $ 56

7 Assistant, Helper 5300  

  Trainee 2,500
Source: Minimum Wage Gazette – 2013, Government of Bangladesh
A non-EPZ factory helper at grade 7 gets BDT 5300 and a pattern master at grade 1 entitled to
BDT 13,000. Contrary within EPZ, a helper receives BDT 5600 i.e. BDT 300 more than non-
EPZ factory. Grade 3, Senior Operator is considered as high skilled operator. Non-EPZ workers
are getting TK 6805 where in EPZ these workers are getting TK 11,200.

Table5.15: Discrimination in annual increment and others benefits in the

Minimum Wage grade 7(Helper)

Outside EPZ Inside EPZ

Basic wage Tk 3000 Tk 3600

Annual  Increment 5% 10%

House Rent Tk 1200 Tk 1415

Food Allowance Tk 650 Not included in wage

Medical Allowances Tk 250 Tk 560

Travel Allowance Tk 200 Not included in wage

Source: Minimum Wage Gazette – 2013, Government of Bangladesh
Outside EPZ annual wage increment is 5% while in EPZ the rate of annual increment is 10%
excluding food allowance. Outside EPZ food and travel allowances are included within the wage
but inside EPZ those allowances are paid in addition to wage. There are other discriminations in
different forms.

Manipulation
There are many other employees working in different areas which are not included in the gazette.
Minimum wage structure is applicable for whose positions mentioned in the gazette and entitled
to all types of benefits mentioned in the law including overtime (OT) payment at double rate of
wage. To avoid extra overtime payment factory management promotes or changes the
designations like executive, supervisor etc. who are getting comparatively higher wage to keep
them away from OT benefits.

Position of Women in Higher Management

RMG has created employment opportunity for the female workers and they are the largest part of
employment pie. With the significant majority, the females are not in supervisory and decision
making positions. At supervisory level, out of total 50 respondents, only 10 respondents are
female, among 20 Compliance managers, no one is female. None of the factory in-charges is
female. There is a density of female workers in the machine operator’s (7 – 4) grades. Less than
5 % females are at supervisor level. Women are underrepresented in the higher managerial
positions.

Table 5.16: Comparison between Male and Female in different positions

No of No of % of
Total % of Male
Female Male Female
Position Respondent Respondent
Respondent Respondent Respondent
s s
s s s

Workers  
94 56 150 62.67% 37.33%
(Grade 7 to 4)

Supervisors 10 40 50 20.00% 80.00%

Compliance
– 20 20 – 100.00%
In-charges

Factory Heads – 20 20 – 100.00%

Source: Filed Data, 2015
The above table refers that females are in large number, 94 out of 150, in between 7 – 4 grades.
In female dominating sector female’s presence in higher positions like supervisors are only 10.
Contrary, out of 40 there is no compliance in-charges and factory managers are from female.

Effective Abolition of Child Labour

Bangladesh Readymade Garments (RMG) sector has achieved an enviable success and its rate of
progress is far better than any of its competing countries. Among the core issues of social
compliance none of the compliant factories has NC (Non-Compliance) issue on account of this
particular area. This rate of success in RMG has accelerated worst form of child labour in many
non-RMG sectors including non-compliant garment factories are violating basic fundamental
human rights of the children.

Age inconsistencies to determine “Child” by the laws 

Regarding the age determination of a child, there were multiple variations in different sectors in
different period. It is clearly defined, by BLA 2006, the child and adolescent by ages.

Table 5.17: Age inconsistencies to determine “Child” by the laws

Law Age

The contract Act,1872 18

The Mines Act, 1923 15

The Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929 Men 21  women 18

 The Children (Pledging of Labour) Act,
15
1933

The Employment of Children Act ,1938 15

The Tea Plantation Ordinance, 1962 12

The Factories Act, 1965 14

The Children Act, 1974 16

Child below 14   Adolescent 14 –  below 18

Bangladesh  Labour Act (BLA) 2006
Adult 18 +
The study reaves that none of the complaint RMG factories recruit any workers below 18.

Child versus Adult Ratio

Among the respondents, out of 150, there were 27% i.e. 40 children against 73% i.e.110 adult
workers. Child labour still is a reality specially in the subcontract and other type of factories.

Table 5.18: Child & Adult Ratio

Employee Type No of Respondents

Adult 110

Child 40

Grand Total 150

Source: Field Data, 2015
Graph 5.8: Child & Adult Ratio
Child labour in Compliant and non-compliant Factories
When an industry like readymade garments does not allow a person who lives under poverty line
and has no way to go to school, s/he has to choose an unregulated and unsafe industry for
employment where the working conditions and forms of work are worst with low wages.
Sometimes they work for food or to learn with no wages at all.

Table 5.19:Child labour in Compliant and non-compliant factory

Female Male Grand
Age Range Female Male
Total Total Total

Sub Sub
Compliant Compliant
Contract/others Contract

12 to Below
0 27 27 0 13 13 40
18

18 + 52 25 77 21 12 33 110

Grand Total 56 48 104 24 22 46 150

n=150
Small and subcontract factories are employing children where they are paying less amount of
wages against more working hours.

Determination of child at RMG factories

To eliminate child labour from Bangladesh RMG sector, factory management has gone one step
ahead i.e. it has eliminated adolescent workers as well. In front of every garment factory there is
a common notice “No child labour is allowed here and/or Workers under 18 years old are not
recruited here” to keep the factory safe from zero tolerance non-compliance issue.

Table 5.20: Average Age of the Children Workers

Age No of Respondents % of total Respondents

13-14 5 12.50

14.1-15 2 5.00

15.1-16 7 17.50

16.1-17 15 37.50

17.1-17.9 11 27.50

Total 40 100
Source: Hasan, M (2015), Field Data
Graph 5.9: Average Age of the Children Workers
Out of total 40 children, there were no workers available among the respondents under 12. All of
them are adolescents, close to 18.

Child labour elimination from RMG sector has increased worst form of child labour
In a least developed country like Bangladesh, where population, illiteracy and poverty are the
major hurdles for sustainable development, it is unlikely to implement the same policy especially
on child labour, which is being applied in developed countries. It is not rational to see the global
perspective of child labour through a single glass. Any generalization across the globe might
affect the children of Bangladesh adversely. On the other hand, it will not be the same nature of
child labour across the industries, i.e. child labour in readymade garment industry and in a mine
or an automobile workshop are not the same. When the minimum wages in different countries
vary according to the countries socio- economic context, one single standard on child labour
would not be justified.

Child labour versus Social compliance

In the existing law,  government, by notification in the official gazette, is empowered to, in case
of emergency and in response to public interest, hold those restricted provisions on employment
of child and adolescent workers for a specific period[27]. According to the law, even after
completion of twelve years a child may be employed in light work that does not endanger his
health or interfere with his education.[28]On March 2013, Child Labour Unit, Ministry of
Labour and Employment, GoB declared the “List of Worst Forms of Works for Children” where
145 activities or components or nature of hazards under 38 occupations have been identified. The
list excluded the RMG sector as the activities in the production floor, cutting and sewing, of
RMG industry is considered as light work.

ILO Convention 138 defines “light work” as work that is not likely to harm the child’s health or
development, or prejudice his/her attendance at school. According to ILO, hazardous work (any
work which is likely to jeopardize children’s health, safety or morals) should not be done by
anyone under the age of 18 but children between the ages of 13 and 15 years old can do light
work, as long as it does not concern any threat of  their health and safety, or hinder their
education or vocational orientation and training. Recruitment of adolescents in the RMG sector
under the companies CSR program will help to minimize different forms of exploitative labour
in the country.

Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining

Both the constitutions of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh and Bangladesh Labour Law
(BLL) – 2006 have incorporated the ILO conventions on freedom of association and collective
bargaining. The Constitution of Bangladesh, Part 3, and Articles 26 to 47A has ensured
fundamental rights of its citizen while freedom of association is written in article 38. Sections
175 – 208 in chapter XIII of BLL-2006 depict regarding trade unions and industrial relations in
details, while ILO conventions 087 and 098 represent freedom of association and protection of
the right to organize and right to collective bargaining respectively.

According to law (BLA 2006, section 176, a,c ) workers, without distinction whatsoever, shall
have the right to form trade union of their own choice. They also have the right to form and join
federation and such unions and federation shall have the right of affiliation with any international
organization and confederation of worker’s. With thirty percent of the total number of workers in
a factory, a trade union is entitled to registration (BLA 2006, section 179,2). As such there are
options to have three (30% x 3) trade unions in the same factory. Neither the president, the
General Secretary, Organizing Secretary or Treasure of any trade union shall be transferred
without his/her consent (BLA 2006, section 187). The precious RMG sector can hardly afford
the traditional model of trade unions in the factories. Previous experience of trade union in
Bangladesh is evident that implementation of such a decision in RMG industry would be
suicidal. Business experts think Workers’ Participation Committees (PC)[29] can be the best
substitute for traditional trade unions.

Number of unions compared to the size of the sector

At present there are 448 unions, more than 70 federations are working in a single sector. Out of
them around 50 federations are registered with the Department of Labour. Some of those
federation leaders once were garment workers. Some of them have no experiences about the
work environment and reality of the factories.

Those federations have varied number of members ranging from fifty thousand to a few lacs, as
they claim. There is no common rule of fixation of fees to be a member of a workers federation.
The study finds that while one federation is charging TK 50, other is charging TK 120 as
membership fee. Similarly, monthly fees varied from TK 05 – TK 50.00. Some of the
organizations are directly linked with the party in power or the party in oppositions.

Workers perception about trade union

The number of federation members is still very low. Female perception about trade union in
female dominating sector is not very positive.

Table 5.21: Workers Membership with Federation

Federation Member

Yes No Total Respondents

28 172 200

Male Female  

21 7
Source: Field Data, 2015
Graph 5.10: Federation Membership
Out of total 200 surveyed workers and supervisors 14% i.e. 28 persons are the members of
different workers’ federations. Among those members 75% are male.

Federation leaders’ perception about the entrepreneurs

While talking with the federation leaders, it was known that workers are not ready yet for trade
union due to lack of awareness and owners’ negative attitude. All the federation leaders
interviewed commented that workers are afraid of owners and factory management who may
terminate them from the job. Government officials are not helping the federation leaders to form
union at factory level.

Owners’ perception about trade union

The owners and compliance practitioners consider that the trade unions activities in the context
of Bangladesh are not industry friendly. The sector suffers more by the traditional form of trade
union. According to the apex bodies, the leaders of trade unions, in most of the cases, grab the
financial benefits of their members, and use them for the sake of leaders’ interest. Apex bodies
welcome constructive trade unions but individually owners of the factories do not appreciate it
 fearing that the workers will be used by external vested quarter if trade unions are allowed in the
factories. Inter group and intra group conflicts, due to union, will hamper the growth of this
industry, the industry leaders commented.

Participatory Committee, a preferred form of workers’ participation

The presence of a genuine bargaining agency can always help the industry to grow. A bargaining
agent without any political affiliation and delinked from any foreign or local NGOs can actually
help any industry to operate successfully and profitably by ensuring a win-win situation for both
the employees and the employers.  RMG sector can hardly afford the traditional model of trade
unions in its factories. According to the owners,  workers’ Participatory Committees (PC) can be
the best substitute for traditional trade unions. These PCs in the RMG units can make a very
good bridge between the management and the workers. Elected PCs are already in action in
many of the factories in the country and they are encouraging examples for those, who are yet to
introduce WPC in their factories.

Workers’ view on effective Participatory Committee

Workers Participatory Committee (PC) is a legal requirement under the sections of 205 – 208 of
BLA-2006.  Most of the compliant factories have participatory committee. Some of them even
are elected by the workers’ direct votes but the workers do not see any impact on management
decision making or minimizing grievance by the committee. They complained that the
management representatives do not attend the meetings and recommendations from the
participatory committee are hardly fulfilled.

Overburdened and highly centralized DIFE and other service providers

According to Bangladesh Labour Act (BLA- 2006), Department of Inspection for Factories and
Establishment (DIFE) under the ministry of Labour and Employment is responsible for ensuring
welfare, safety and health issues incorporated in the law. The DIFE approves machine layout
plan, issues factory license, inspect fire and electrical safety, and health and hazard issues. The
areas of the DIFE’s responsibility are very wide.  There are thousands of factories and millions
of shops and establishment where millions of workers are employed. At present, only in garment
sector, total numbers of factories are 6165. Among them 3580 factories are under the
membership of BGMEA and it is 1885 against BKMEA, while non-member factories are around
700.

The department has: –

1. 36 first class officers against 75 sanctioned posts

2. 20 second class officers against 25 sanctioned posts
3. 85 third class employees against 152 sanctioned posts
4. 43 fourth class employees against 62 sanctioned posts
A very meager number of employees compared to the total number of factories, shops and
commercial establishments. [30]

With huge shortage of man-power, the highly centralized department is overburdened with
multidimensional works. Among the seven labour courts, three are based in Dhaka, two in
Chittagong, one in Rajshahi and one in Khulna. As a result, ensuring proper and timely justice is
not possible. Decentralization and additional number of offices of DIFE and labour courts are
must.

It is near impossible for a single department, DIFE, that has been suffering from shortage of
manpower and lack of capacity and expertise to deliver its service properly and timely. Contrary,
huge responsibilities against limited human resources tends to corruption and keeps the areas
unsupervised. Rather this endorses the stakeholders’ claim of passive role of government in
social compliance.

Multidimensional task by a highly centralized department 

There are three core areas in the labour law such as General, Health and hygiene and Technical –
electrical and fire. General function includes employment condition of the workers, ensuring fire
and electrical issues are called as technical and maintaining congenial environment for workers’
physical conditions are termed as health and hygiene functions. Those diversified responsibilities
are given to a single department. This highly centralized department with shortage of manpower
cannot cope up with the requirement. From the key informants’ observation and other
experts’opinions includinggovernment officials, following observations and opinions were noted.

The technical functions of DIFE

The Power Development Board (PDB) provides electrical facilities for domestic and industrial
uses. Electricity is being supplied to the RMG factory by the same authority. They permit load
sanction based on load demand and calculation of capacity. The PDB has electrical engineers but
they are not responsible for factory electrical safety. They know how to design electrical wiring,
how to convert from high voltage to low voltage, and what type of cable, power guard are
required against particular watt load. But they do not do this inspection where they are
technically competent and proper authority. Many factories are consuming higher load with
lowload capacity, where PDB has the technical expertise to identify.

The section 62 “precaution in case of fire” of chapter VI under BLL – 2006 make factory
inspectors responsible in fire protection activities which is more relevant with the mega
department, Fire Service & Civil Defense (FSCD), that is the appropriate body and fire license
issuing authority for factories. All the major accidents, except Spectrum sweater factory and
Rana plaza, occurred in the factories are related to electrical malfunctions. Factory inspector of
DIEF oversees if any cable is found unorganized but they can’t check if the cable is carrying
overload or the factory is using substandard cable or if the transmission from main distribution
line to sub distribution line is okay. This inspection should have done by PDB, who are
supplying authority, not the DIFE.
The functions related to health and hygiene
In regard to health and hygiene, DIFE has registered doctors as the factory inspectors.  These
inspectors inspect work related hazards like dust and fume, overcrowding, lighting, drinking
water, toilets etc. They determine the diseases associated with work.  The National Institute of
Preventive and Social Medicine (NIPSOM), a national level public health institute, is promoting
and restoring health. The institute supports in the different health policy formulation of the
government and community health programs through research, training and services. This
institution can ensure workplace health and hygiene factor implementing the issues described in
the labour law properly.

Specific Role of the Department can make it Effective

The DIFE can be more relevant and effective inspecting the issues like conditions of service and
employment, employment of adolescent, maternity benefit, welfare, working hour and leave,
wage and payment etc. it was known that they approve factory layout and issue factory license
and renew the same years after years without seeing and verifying the site. Sometimes, both the
owners and government officials take the advantages of the poor governance system. Exemplary
punitive measures against any inspector for his/her failure of supervision is rare or unseen. On
the other hand, none of the owners, held responsible for fire or factory building collapses.
Nonexistence of any example in both the cases indicates malfunctioning of rule of law.

Factory inspectors pool should include labour law practitioners for spot judgment at the time of
inspection and the provisions of health and hygiene can be transferred to government heath
institutions like NIPSOM to determine and protect industry specific diseases. Electrical safety
issues need to be delegated to Power Development Board (PDB) as they supply power to the
factories and they have the competent engineers to monitor electrical faults. Overall fire related
issues can be monitored by the mega department, Fire Service and Civil Defense.

The Drawbacks with Apex bodies – BGMEA and BKMEA

The offices of the apex bodies are centralized mainly in two cities, Dhaka, and Narayonganj.
Though most of the factories are situated at the suburbs of the city but apex bodies do not have
any office with proper authority at the door steps of the factories clusters. In Ashulia, BGMEA
has a one-man one-room office, while BKMEA has none. These bodies issue membership
certificate and provide necessary services like Utilization Declaration (UD) based on material
consumptions, conduct arbitration among the disputed parties, provide training especially on
compliance issue.

Graph 5.11: Visit Ratio by Different Agencies, Source:Hasan, M (2015), Field Data

Both the bodies are responsible to ensure compliance requirement before approving their
membership. Out of total visit or audit 95% is of buyers’ initiatives while DIFE has almost no
supervision to the factories. Only after any disaster in the sector, factories feel their presence.

Highly Centralized Associations

The trade associations, BGMEA and BKMEA, both are highly centralized. To get any service,
factory officials have to come to central Dhaka from a far distance. No one has any branch office
with proper authority to negotiate workers’ grievances or unrests. BGMEA has a one-man office
at Ashulia while BKMEA has none.

Lack of Data and information

Even after three decades none of the apex bodies has actual data of total workforces. It is also
difficult to confirm the ratio of male to female workers of the sector. Some estimate this ratio as
85% female while 15% male are employed in the sector. After Tazreen Fashions and Rana Plaza
accidents different media claimed different numbers of victims. None of the associations had the
correct number of employees that were employed in those factories.

Table 5.22: Bio-Metric data base of the workers

BGMEA Bio Metric Database

No of Respondents (n=40)

Yes No

2 38
Even family members of deceased workers claimed that they did not receive the dead body of
their beloved ones. To overcome this sort of unexpected situation BGMEA came up with a
decision to make Bio-Metric worker database on 5th May 2013. But till date the plan has not been
materialized.
Non-existence of Service book 
To protect illegal migration of the workers, both the associations decided to introduce the service
book, which is also a legal provision (Section 6, BLL 2006), against each worker. But at the time
of recruitment none of the factory asks for their service book. Most of the cases workers left the
current company after their salary payment without informing and maintain proper procedure. In
fact, till date there is no use of service book as none of the members complies with the objective
of the service book.

Table 6.23: Availability of service book

Application of Service Books

No of Respondents (n=40)

Yes No

7 33
All big or small size factories do not provide training to their employees to make a worker
skilled and qualified rather they prefer to hire at any cost a ready and skilled worker from their
neighboring factory.

Un-healthy competition among the factories

It was revealed from the discussion with the top management, sometimes factory accept the
business even at cost price to ensure required volume of business. During his period, Mr Fazlul
Hoque, Ex-President of BKMEA (2004 – 2010), initiated to fix the minimum price level against
a particular style of different product categories which was appreciated by all but none of the
factories followed the decision. This ill competition among the owners ultimately helps the buyer
to buy the same product at a very cheaper price. Here the buyer does not think ethically and the
owner also does not lose. The owners of the factory absorb the lower price by cutting workers
benefits and due compensations.

The Drawbacks at Factory Level

HR and compliance department is responsible for running the factory complying with legal
requirements and in accordance with the organization policies. To make it happen, a competent,
dedicated department along with authority is a must. The RMG sector has flourished in a very
scattered way. Unplanned expansion of production capacity without development of human
resources management has established the dependency on foreign nationals. There was no
effective management system for maintaining the labour intensive industry like the RMG.
Employee dissatisfaction, absence of job security, low retention rate etc. is very common in the
sector.

Non-Functional Human Resources Department (HRD)

The functional HRD depends on the delegation of authority. Interviews with the compliance
practitioners it reveals that employers are not yet ready to delegate their authority that they have
been exercising over the decades. They will make mid-management responsible for the failures.
They will assign huge workload to a particular person or department but they will not delegate
proper authority with the assigned responsibility. Without authority no one can exercise his/her
responsibility. The workers are not happy with HR practices, as they claim that HRD in the
factories acts in accordance with the employers’ prescription. To the workers, the role of HRD at
the factory is like as police, where workers are always treated with suspicion. Anyone is asked to
visit HR department means she/he is going to lose the job or will be punished. Workers claim
that, the personnel of HRD take the signature of the workers in a blank paper forcefully so that
they can write and use that paper as required. Contrary, federations take this opportunity and
send legal notice to factory management on behalf of terminated workers and thus workers get
involved with the federations with a hope to get something, as service/termination benefits than
nothing.

Multi-dimensional task to a single department

One single department is responsible for multiple works; similarly, multiple departments are
responsible for a single work.In most of the factories, the compliance department is also
responsible for HR and administrative activities. They have a huge work load. In this situation
the HR department becomes demotivated and they cannot involve themselves in workers training
and development and motivational activities.

Table 5.24:  Dedicated Departments for Compliance

Separate department on Admin, HR, Compliance Total %

No 35 87

Yes 5 13

Grand Total 40 100

Source: Field Data
Graph 5.12: Dedicated Departments for Compliance

Though 13% factories have separate departments for HR and compliance but delegation of
authority and responsibility is not clear.

Highly controlled access to the top management

In the context of workers’ grievance procedure, workers have hardly access to the factory head.
They are to rely on welfare officer, HR personnel or complaint box where the workers express
their grievances. Though there are complaint boxes in the factory but these boxes are under
control of the persons and departments about whom the workers complain the most. As a result,
their grievances are not handled with due respect.

Manipulation of data and Manage culture

Generally, in social and technical audits it requires a list of papers to be available. If any paper is
missing or incorrect, it is not impossible, depending on relationship between auditor and auditee,
to make the paper ready or corrected by their own.

Graph 5.13: The Most Manipulated Documents in Compliance

Source: Hasan, M (2015), Field Data

According to the compliance managers interviewed, the most violated areas are resignation and
termination benefits and payment on Extra overtime hours. To face the compliance audit
compliance manager has to prepare duplicate wage sheets as and when   necessary.

Social Compliance and Workers Satisfaction

Social compliance delivers shared benefits like helps in business growth for the factories,
generate goodwill for the brands and presence of social compliance ensures workers satisfaction.
Based on field study, basic principle of social compliance i.e. level of workers’ satisfaction has
been shown in following table.

Table 5.25: Workers Job Satisfaction

Present work condition No of Respondents %

Dissatisfied 148 74

Good 27 14

No Comment 25 12
 Grand Total 200 100
Source: Field Data
Out of total 200 workers surveyed, 148 expressed their dissatisfaction over their present working
conditions and benefits where 25 answered no comment and 27 said good. Because of this huge
number of workers having job dissatisfaction, the migration keeps going on.

The factors workers value the most

The most important factor to the workers is fully and timely payment. They prefer present time
benefit instead of retirement/service benefits, as they know their services have no security and
certainty.

Most of the respondents emphasized on right amount of payment in right time followed by better
working condition, health and safety, job security, medical center, good behavior, daycare etc.

Graph 5.14: The Important Factors to Workers

Source: Hasan, M (2015), Field Data

Job Stability by Grades
The study reveals that the overall retention rate in a particular factory is low. They change the
factory more, when they are in lower grade. In grade 7 the helper/assistant changes within eight
months of their first joining in the job. This trend in grade 6 is 1.6, in grade 5 is 1.8, in grade 4 is
2.1, in grade 3 is 2.2 years’ average. The supervisors’ retention in a particular factory is more
than the workers.

Table 5.26:Job Stability by Grades

 D:   Numbe E:   Job
B:   No of C:   Average
A:   Position/ Grad r of Stability
Respondents (Tot Experience (Year
e Factories (Years) (C/D
al 200) s)
Changed )

Supervisor 50 5.3 3 1.9

2 1 7 2 3.5

3 23 7.2 3 2.2

4 40 5.2 2 2.1

5 66 5.1 3 1.8

6 11 5.0 3 1.6

7 9 1.4 2 0.8
Source: Field Data, 2015
Graph 5.15: Job Stability by Grades
From employers’ side, retention of any worker for more than five years create extra burden on
finance in the form of compensation (Ref BLA section 27, 4a) i.e. service and other benefit
depend on worker’s service length. Contrary, employees emphasize on present receivables, as
present is more important to them, because they are not sure about their future.

Reasons for workers’ dissatisfaction

There is a close relation between job dissatisfaction and migration. It makes the workers
dissatisfied as their supervisors do not grant them leave even when it is inevitable. They do not
assess them in a proper and transparent manner. Any kind and form of discrimination lead the
workers to dissatisfaction.

Graph 5.16: Reasons for Job Dissatisfaction

n =200
n =200
Source: Hasan, M (2015), Field Data
Irregular, less and deducted payment, misbehavior of the supervisors are the common factors of
dissatisfaction at workplace.

Workers change the boss not the job

Generally, workers do not change their job rather they change their workplaces only. When a
worker leaves, actually he/she does not leave the job, rather he/she leaves his/her boss only. For
example, from a readymade garment factory a worker migrates to another readymade garment
factory, because his/her expertise cannot be sold to a non-RMG trade.

High Migration
The sector suffers from high workers’ migration which is the result of dissatisfaction. Any
migration or low retention with job has multiple effects on the organization. There is a close
relation between compliance and workers’ satisfaction. This reveals ineffectiveness of existing
practice of social compliance.

Table 5.27:  Workers Migration

Reasons behind frequent factory changes No of Respondents %

Better wage 74 37

Misbehavior of Supervisor 39 24

Working Condition 32 20

Family Problem 8 16
 Payment Deduction & Irregularity 47 3

Grand Total 200 100

Source: Field Data, 2015
Graph 5.17:  Workers Migration

Wage is the key factor of migration. Every worker values the present time receivables. They
emphasize on good behavior more than working condition – health and safety issues.

Historically none of the workers’ demand was fulfilled without violent movement. The concept
of eight- hour work, elimination of child labour, determination of minimum wage, standard
working condition etc. were the result of workers’ movement and in some cases at the cost of
their lives. In manufacturing industry, especially labour intensive sector like RMG, when the
workers demand had not been full filled over the period workers’ dissatisfaction turned into
unrest. The fact is even after having compliant in paper factories do not practice labour standard
are in accordance with law. Till now workers’ satisfaction is a far cry in the sector though the
sector claims as a compliant.

Labour Migrations and Workers’ Unrests in the Study Area

Among the major RMG clusters Ashulia is called as a second generation industrial zone. Ashulia
has the highest migration rate, because factory density is higher and competition among the
factories to hire skilled workers from neighbor’s factories.

Graph 5.18: Reasons behind Unrests in Ashulia Industrial Area

Source: BGMEA Ashulia Branch Office, 2014

From the record of BGMEA branch office at Ashulia above reasons were identified for the
unrests in the factories. Among the reasons, settlement of termination/dismissal benefits is at the
 top. Lack of policy and its weak implementation both are heavily present in the factories. Non-
compliant factories do not have any policy of this kind. The owners cum factory heads look after
from production to workers’ management. Ashulia, being an area with maximum number of
RMG factories, experienced severe labour unrests in different times on various grounds. Most of
the unrests jolted the sector initiated at Ashulia and its adjacent areas. The study finds a number
of factors that are responsible for igniting unrest and workers protest in Ashulia. Some of the
factors are as below:

1. Workers from multi sectors: The workers from multi sectors like EPZ, non –EPZ,
RMG, non-RMG, compliant factories, non-complaint factories are available in Ashulia. The
workers living in this area are not under a single wage structure though they belong to the
same sector. The workers’ wages and incentives are also different from one factory to other.
The workers of garment factories in EPZ are getting higher wages and benefits than that of
non-EPZ garment factories. Moreover, the non-EPZ factories have the practices of different
incentive packages while non-compliance factories have no uniformed structure of wage and
other benefits. The workers are doing the same job with different benefits or incentives in the
same area, though they are sharing the living place together. Depending on the size and
financial capacity, different factories offer different types of attractive incentives for the
workers on attendance, production, target etc. This mismatched wage structure and varied
incentives package ultimately make the workers dissatisfied and demotivated.
2. A large number of workers with diverse working sectors are living in a small area.
There is huge scarcity of worker accommodation, which is one of the major problems of the
workers, especially for the females. Accommodation crisis has opened up many fold
opportunities for the locals. The local people have sold their land to either the factory owner or
they have built houses for renting. In these houses the landlords are not practicing proper
manner with the tenants, who in most of the cases are garment workers from different areas.
During the study one of the owners confessed that before renting his house, his land was full
of jackfruit trees, now he earns more in a year from the room rent than the jackfruit selling.
Thus making houses for the workers’ accommodation has become a business for the local land
owners. In Ashulia, apart from room rent other charges like electricity and water bills are
higher than other areas.
 Problems with the garment byproducts: The garbage or jhut (small pieces of wastage
fabrics) has animportant role in labour unrest. The people who are involved with this trade are
linked with political parties. To control over jhute trade intra and inter group conflict finally
turns to unrest in the sector.
1. Lack of infrastructure: The second-generation cluster is not a well-planned zone for the
garment industry. This particular area was free from devastating flood in 1988 when most of
part of Dhaka city was under water. The price of land in Ashulia, adjacent to Dhaka EPZ, was
lower but very close to Dhaka airport, availability of necessary utilities like gas and electricity
 etc. attracted the RMG entrepreneurs to set their factories in that village area. At the same
time, to support the private entrepreneurs, sufficient infrastructure was not available. Even till
date, there is no effective Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP), planned waste management system,
sufficient roads and highway to accommodate huge number of factories. Rather over crowded
area has lost its natural beauty due to serious sectored impact on environmental degradation.
2. Absence of effective governing bodies: The area faced labour unrest in different times
due to lack of proper management and governance system. The organizations regulating the
industry, the labour court, DIFE, EPB and BGMEA/BKMEA have no offices in Ashulia.
BGMEA has a single man branch office that does not serve any purpose of any quarter. So the
workers who are in trouble and seeking for justice has to go to the federation or other NGOs
present there. The federation leaders and NGOs take the advantage of this situation to the
fullest.
After Rana Plaza
Many of the industry experts termed the Tazreen fashion and Rana plaza disasters as a
“paradigm shift”. Some called those two disasters as “wake up call”. Thedevastating accident in
the history of global apparel manufacturing industry “Rana Plaza” has brought many positive
changes in this sector. Among them, according to the compliance practitioners, owners’ mindset
is at the top.

Accord on Fire and Building Safety (Accord) and Alliance for Bangladesh Workers Safety
(Alliance) – two alliances of international buyers – have also undertaken building assessment
(structural integrity, fire and electrical safety). The number of factories came down to 4222 from
5876 due to shutdown of small and subcontract factories. The RMG sector in Bangladesh is
moving towards green building initiatives to impress the eco minded buyers globally.
Government has set its vision in view of its golden jubilee of independence in 2021 to upgrade
Bangladesh to a middle-income country (MIC) from Least Developed Country (LDC). In line
with the government, BGMEA also has fixed its export target to $ 50 billion on the country’s
50th anniversary i.e. in 2021.
Workers are always in vulnerable situation
A huge amount of money was invested to comply with the guidelines of Accord & Alliance for
fire safety and building integrity. Those initiatives may ensure structural safety of the building
and can minimize the risk of fire accidents in the factories but has jeopardized the livelihood of
the workers.  Around 220 listed factories were closed along with thousands of unlisted or
subcontract factories with the loss of 150,000 – 500,000 employments due to strict safety
initiatives that required huge investment.

Number of trade unions increased

The trade unions enrolments has increased dramatically after the Rana plaza collapse. In 2012,
there were 122 unions in the sector that represented less than 3% of workers. In the year 2015,
there are 437 unions, representing nearly 5% of workers of this sector. Both the number of trade
union and anti-trade union activities have increased.  Though foreign buyers and donor agencies
encourage the trade unions, it is not a feasible solution yet in the context of Bangladesh. The
workers of RMG sector are mostly with primary or no formal education. They are not well aware
of their rights. Some vested groups take the chances of their situation by misleading them in
most cases through the trade unions.

Up-gradation of DIFE
On account of Rana Plaza disaster government has upgraded the Directorate to the Department
of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE) and has increased its manpower, which is
one of the conditions to get back GSP facility from USA.

Impact on Entrepreneurs and Workers

After Rana plaza collapse, business pattern has been changed. In response to Accord’s and
Alliance’s guidelines after the thorough inspections by both the authorities, the factories had to
invest huge amount of money for the building and fire safety. At present working environment
and with factory building, electrical and fire safety have been improved. Contrary, during the
period the Cutting and Making charges have been reduced.

Graph 5.19:  Impacts of Rana Plaza and Tazreen Fashions Accident on RMG Business
Bangladesh
Source: Field Data, 2015
Since many factories were shut down after the accident the workers were in more vulnerable
position with less job security due to job scarcity.

Shutdown of Small Factories, Capacity enhancement of Large One

The factories with small production capacity have been shut down while the factories with bigger
capacity have been increasing.

Table 5.28: Decreasing Small Factories, Increasing Large Size Factories

Grade Worker Range ’14-15 15 -16

1 1 – 500 1105 767

2 501 – 1,000 545 474

3 1,001 – 2,500 471 462

4 2,501 – 5,000 148 154

5 5,001 – 100,000 39 45

Total 2308 1902

Source:  BGMEA, 2016
To meet Accord and Alliance’s requirements on safety issue, most of the small and subcontract
factories were unable to run, and finally closed.

Problems Identified with the existing system

Theoretically social compliance upholds all sorts of labors’ rights and safety measures like
workers’ health, job security, social dignity and ensure living standard. In reality, there are a
huge number of socially compliant factories that ensure business growth and increase brand
image but do not protect workers’ safety and satisfaction. The incidents took place at Ashulia or
its adjacent areas were the compliant factories. It is evident that existing model of social
compliance does not guarantee for safe working environment and workers satisfaction.

Buyers’ Driven Compliance does not ensure workers safety

Buyers driven social compliance at factory level has a different perspective. They are not and
need not to be focused on workers wellbeing; rather they need a certificate to assure their
customers that the garments they sell, are sourced from compliant factories. To protect their
brand name and avoid any unexpected disaster, most of the buyers have strong presence in
compliance audit in accordance with their respective codes of conduct. The factories are certified
to work for the particular buyer, if the audit result carries the optimum points. Different audits
have different grading systems. The opportunity for business is open when the concerned buyer
approves the factory. The social compliance audit’s result ensures business continuation and
growth, but not necessarily workers satisfaction.

The existing practices of social compliance have audit fatigue due to enormous pressure of audits
from different buyers on the same issue. Buyers driven compliance concentrate more on audits
rather than solving the problems. The factories manage the problems for the time being and pass
audits with fake papers, but working condition and workers status remain the same. As a result,
in micro level, the impact of such short term solutions does not make any difference in the
workers’ life.

Lack of Core controlling authority, Multiple Guidelines etc

From the in depth interview, multiple reasons have been identified as the bottleneck with the
existing system. The apex bodies’ leaders find absence of sector specific ministry is a vital issue
for good governance in social compliance. The country’s largest sector in all respect suffers from
a core authority. Apex bodies, BGMEA and BKMEA, demand for a separate ministry for the
sector to monitor the issues with high importance. At present there are 12 ministries/agencies are
involved in this single sector. Contrary, as a part of global value chain, the sector follows
multiple standards based on buyers COCs, international third parties’ standards, ILO convention,
Bangladesh labour law etc. These multiple standards for a single sector hamper to maintain
social compliance in the factory level. The labour law practitioners urge for strong and clear
policy framework with more penalty clauses for the violation. They also emphasize for rule of
law and its impartial application while federation leaders identified owner’s mindset is the
significant factor for the good governance. Government officials identified shortage of
manpower; weak infrastructure, bureaucracy, and centralized authority are the bottlenecks for
good governance.

Table 5.29: Experts Opinions on effective compliance

Source: Hasan, M (2015), Field Data

Graph 5.20: Expert Opinions on effective compliance

Finally, to have good governance most important issue has been identified as the emergence of
core authority followed by single audit, infrastructure, policy implementation and revision,
mindset of the owners and rearrangement of management.

Passive role of Government and Apex Bodies

It has been identified from the field study that the roles of Government and the Apex bodies
(BGMEA & BKMEA) in the RMG sector of Bangladesh are most likely passive. They are
following the corrective plans in ad-hoc basis instead of proactive. They are found active when
an incident happens. There are thousands of factories and millions of shops and establishment
where millions of workers are employed. With huge shortage of man-power the highly
centralized department is overburdened of multidimensional works. The offices of the apex
bodies, BGMEA and BKMEA, are also centralized.

Low Price of the Product

There is a huge gap between buyers offering price and asking compliance standards.  To
accommodate with that price,management deprives the workers from their legal benefits.
Without fair price from the buyers, fair practice of compliance in factories level is a dream. The
study finds that there are a number of compliant factories, but workers dissatisfaction, violation
of legal rights, unsafe working conditions remains’ unchanged.

Table 5.30: Differences among CM, FOB and Sell Price

Brand CM/dz FoB/pc Price Tag/pc

A $19.00 $7.55 $40.36

B $18.50 $5.50 £ 12.00

C $21.00 $8.60 £ 30.00

D $15.50 $6.12 £12.00

E $14.50 $6.88 $68.00

F $21.00 $7.82 $62.00

G $35.00 $6.28 £20.00

H $16.50 $ 5.49 $59.50

I $17.50 $6.80 Lira 44.30

J $18.00 $6.80 SA r 180.00

Source: Hasan, M (2014), Field Data
According to the manufacturers, they work at lowest segment of total value chain. One of the
factories, reputed for compliance and demand higher Cutting and Making (CM) charges
compared to their competitors, is getting $ 19/dz i.e. $ 1.58/pc (BDT 123.00 @ 1 $ = BDT 78)
for a semi critical woven L/S shirt and for a basic shirt that factory is offered for $ 14.50/dz i.e. $
1.20/pc (BDT 94.00 @ 1 $ = BDT 78) while those shirts are sold to the customers @ $ 40.36/pc
and $ 68.00/pc respectively.
Engagement of Third Parties
One of the limitations of the sector is the dependency on the buying-houses, both local and
foreign. Apart from the ultimate consumers and manufacturers, there are many other parties in
between involved in RMG business. In many cases a work order comes to a manufacturer
through four to five different hands/ phases. For example, a buyer in USA (ultimate
customer/brand owner) confirms the business with an agent of that country. This agent has
another agent in India.

Graph 5.21: Engagement of Third Parties

The agent in India has another agent in Bangladesh who is called “local agent”. That local agent
communicates with the manufacturer. A huge amount of business is being done by the
involvement of third parties or middlemen.

Tazreen Fashions where devastating fire incident took 113 lives of garment workers in 24 Nov
2012 had been working with Wal-Mart Inc. through an agent in New York named Success
Apparels NY. Success Apparels NY gave the order to Simco Dresses Ltd Bangladesh, Simco
Dresses Ltd made a contract with Tuba Fashions, Tuba fashions got the job done with Tazreen
Fashions. This is how often things are getting done in Bangladesh RMG sector.

Major hurdles handling Social Compliance 

The hurdles of social compliance are different to various departments and persons. Findings
show that low price is the most challenging factor for compliance that carries 32 points out of 45
(15 x 3), 31 points went for short lead time and labour turnover while 29 points for working
hours.
Graph 5.22: Major Hurdles in Social Compliance

Source: Field Data
Compliance managers consider working hour while factory heads mark short lead-time as the
main challenge. To the employers’ low price is the number one challenge to make the factory
compliant. To the factory heads, apart from short lead-time, shortage of power supply, workers’
inefficiency etc. are lower than competing countries, workers’ turnover are the main reasons that
extend working hours beyond legal limit. On the contrary, delegation of authority, multiple
audits, working hours, conditions imposed to recruit adolescent workers; federations are the main
hurdles to make the factory compliant.

Conclusion
No matter whatever the policies and laws are formulated to back up the sector, if those are not
implemented, all efforts will go in vein. “Only policy making and formulation of favorable rules
and regulations cannot ensure reducing uncertainties arising from these weaknesses. Government
and all concerned decision making bodies must put their sincere and utmost efforts towards
developing ways through which effective implementation of rules and regulation is possible”
(Begum and Ahmed, 1999, p.17).
Social compliance being a complex system needs special focus. The existing practices of social
compliance are ineffective in most of the cases with several loopholes. Having analyzed all the
aforementioned findings of the current research, it can be concluded that there is a high
dissatisfaction among the workers in relation to the benefits they get from the industry. The
employees’ retention rate in RMG is also quite low which causes higher turnover cost. In
addition, government supervision is very weak or almost absent, which causes unnecessary third-
party intervention. To combat malpractices with the existing system and to ensure a functional
social compliance an inclusive and country specific framework is inevitable.

Chapter VI
Concluding Remarks
Social compliance is a complex cycle; it depends on several crucial factors, which are linked
together as a chain.  A chain is as strong as all of its rings are.  Similarly, a chain is as weak as
one of its weak rings is; i.e.one single weak ring is more than enough to make the whole chain
system dysfunctional. This example is very much related in the case of RMG industry because
this sector has several things attached to it and all are interdependent.

Success of this sector depends, along with the others factors, on the nature of its public policy
and administration to a greater extent. Moreover, formulation of a policy is immaterial; no matter
how strong it is, if proper implementation mechanism is absent or weak. A policy is nothing but
a utopian idea if someone does not have the implementation capability of that policy. Similarly,
formulation of a standard without considering the socio-economic context of the country is
actually no standard at all.

There is no scope to evaluate the issues of social compliance of RMG sector in an isolated
manner. It has a holistic dimension in society, economics, politics and culture. An organization is
best known by its management, an organization performs as good as its members perform, and
an organization’s culture is determined mainly by the culture of its owners. But the sector is yet
to be recognized as an institution from its organizational structure. An organization becomes an
institution when it is socially accepted and the benefits of the organization are distributed among
the societies. From an organization to turn as an institution, not only economic contribution is
enough, it also needs to match with social values and culture as well. There is no doubt about the
continuous growth of RMG but to ensure sustainability the apex bodies and the government have
to address the bottlenecks of the sector. Ignoring the social culture, achievement of holistic
benefits are impossible. The study has revealed dissatisfaction, in large extend, among the
workers of RMG sector. There are huge number of compliant factories according to the existing
system, but many of noncompliance elements are still exists. Child labour free sector does not
ensure elimination of worst form of child labour, restrictions on working hours could not stop
extra over time work beyond the legal limit. Traditional type of trade union could not uphold
workers’ safety and rights. Female majority did not confirm their managerial and supervisory
positions.

From the very beginning, the labour intensive sector, RMG, has been taking the chances of
surplus labour, ignoring their legal rights and acceptable working conditions. Rather the main
emphasis is always on production enhancement and fulfillment of profit target by lowering the
production cost. The present study has identified the different phases of growth of the sector in
Bangladesh. The study has also described existing practices of social compliance. To address
country specific problem, it needs country specific framework for effective and positive impact
of social compliance for Bangladesh RMG sector. Social compliance was always neglected by
the first generation, inexperienced entrepreneurs to whom these legal bindings were a pressure
from the buyers and considered as an extra cost to their business. Disorganized, illiteracy,
scarcity of alternative employment opportunities did not help those first generation submissive
female employees to form as a pressure group. The bourgeois mentality that prevails between the
first generation employer and employee in Bangladesh, is such that the employees usually
consider an employment as a “gift of god” and “employers’ kindness”, relationship is built up
neither on legal framework nor on norms and ethics. In order to make Bangladesh RMG sector
socially compliant, based on the findings of the present studies, a number of issues have to be
addressed both in policy formulation and executions levels.

Recommendations
The present practices of social compliance are not effective to meet its core objective –
“Promoting jobs, protecting people” the motto of ILO. The buyers are in the driving forces in the
existing system. They prefer short term solutions, as long as their business is concerned, of the
problems. On the other hand, in the name of compliance unnecessary and irrelevant pressure and
requirements are not expected which may discourage the entrepreneurs to further invest in this
sector. The following recommendations can be proposed considering the drawbacks in the
existing system for a sustainable solution.

Formation of a Separate Ministry

The RMG sector in Bangladesh is running by various authorities and alarmingly having no
specific regulation from a single authority in this prospective sector. Here the government has
dual responsibilities – maintaining growth to generate more employment and ensuring working
environment. The major role of government in implementing social compliance would be to
form a separate ministry that will be dedicated for the RMG sector only. Since the readymade
garment industry, as a part of international supply chain, is different from the other industries
present, it needs special care from the legal authority to have a sustainable growth by fulfilling
its goals.
Formulation of a National Standard
The buyers, who focus on profit maximization, are the driving forces in the existing system, not
necessarily they look for any permanent and long-term solutions for the problems. Considering
the socio-economic context of Bangladesh, a “set of standard” needs to be formulated.

One Audit under a Common Checklist against a Unified Codes’ of Conduct

The motto of buyers driven social compliance, is for their business guarantee where employees’
satisfaction is not within the purview of present practices of compliance. The numbers of
compliant factories are mentionable, but the essence of social compliance is not achieved yet
especially on workers’ satisfaction. In absence of a common guideline under a single regulatory
authority with appropriate logistics and human resources, the largest sector is being dominated
by multiple authorities with multiple guidelines.  To get rid of this situation an alternative
approach has to be developed where all the parties involved, through its value chain, would be
benefited. To avoid repeated audits under different checklists unification of CoCs is a must.

A Functional HR System
Though the sector has achieved an enviable growth in terms of business volume but the findings
reveal that the rate of progress on workers’ rights is absent or very low. Problems lie with the
existing legal framework and its practices. The entrepreneurs hardly recognize the necessity of
modern management system – training and development to upgrade their human resources.
Rather they have chosen “minimum” and “manage’’ culture for the workers to retain their profit
share even in adverse situation. Moreover, buyer driven compliance audit and passive role of
government help the situation to continue.

Even after four decades the sector could not develop management and technical experts locally.
A functional, with well-defined responsibility and delegated authority, management system has
to be developed. With the inclusion of effective management system, local meritorious job
applicants can be replaced foreign experts, who are dominating the sector at present.  A large
number of foreigners are working in Bangladesh RMG and its associated sectors like shipping
lines, freight forwarding agents, garment inspection companies, buying offices etc.

Most of the foreigners are from India, Sri Lanka, China, Pakistan, South Korea and Philippines,
who are narrowing job opportunities of the locals. These highly paid foreigners remit out a
substantial amount of foreign currencies and government is losing tax from their incomes as their
salaries and perks are under invoiced and miss-declared. The sector facilitated foreign nationals
by placing them in higher positions with many times higher salaries than that of the locals for the
same positions. With proper initiatives like providing training this sector can retain more foreign
currencies and create employment opportunities for the talented locals. Owners of the companies
should have a proper and functional HR system to sustain the business.
 Child labour eradication in an effective manner
Child labour is a fundamental human rights issue. There are different dimensions of child labour
i.e. Economic, Social, Physical, Educational. It is expected that at the premature stage, a very
young boy/girl should attend school and grow up with potentialities as a future human resources.
Ironically they are facing real world problem, which they are not prepared for especially in the
third world countries. For an adolescent boy/girl who has been refused by RMG, will find it
difficult to lead a life with secured growth and better health unless he finds anything as bread
earner. Present bottleneck situation for the employment of adolescent workers can be solved
easily with necessary amendment in working hour and minimum wage provisions through a
notification by the concerned ministry.  The adolescent can be paid against their working hours.

 For example, BDT 5300 is allocated for 8 hours as per minimum wage gazette against
grade 7, so an adolescent will get TK 5,300/8 X 6 hours a day = TK 3975 for six hours work
with overtime. If working hours in a day/week can be extended by a notification, then why the
same exception can’t be applied here? Government needs to pay serious attention to this fact
as soon as possible to eradicate worst form of child labour successfully and to help surviving
the adolescent with a healthy life.
Ensuring Efficient Supply Chain
RMG industry in Bangladesh so far has been enjoying very clear price competitiveness. The rate
of minimum wage in Bangladesh is still lowest among the competitors. The sector faces huge
pressure on lead time. Cheap labour does not help if they are not efficient. In the evolving of fast
fashion, both quantity and time are a big deal. A small quantity with many styles in a short lead
time is not possible without a functional supply chain. Reducing the dependency on imported
materials is vital to make the chain strong. Without proper management in supply chain, only
minimum wage competitiveness can’t ensure sustainable business. So for the sake of the
industry, Bangladesh has no alternative except for making an effective supply chain
management. In RMG business, there is a very strong correlation between business value chain
and supply chain.

Ensure Effective Participatory Committee (PC)

Among the other functions of PC, ensuring guarantee in application of labour laws, encouraging
vocational training, workers’ education and family welfare training, improving productivity are
also very important work for them to go. PC’s in the RMG units can make a very good bridge
between the management and the workers. Elected PCs are already in action in many of the
factories in the country and they are playing an encouraging example for those, who are yet to
introduce PC in their factories. Participatory committee can work as a platform to bridge the
employers and employees and make sure that the employee’s legal right is met by the employer
through PC.
Cluster Based – School Cum Entertainment Center
The machine-like workers have no opportunities and facilities for entertainment. The apex body
can introduce frequency modulation (FM) radio for the RMG sector as the source of
entertainment and information. This radio can improve employee-employer relationship. The
workers can participate in technical, legal or cultural programs. The factories play music during
working hours through Public Address (PA) system to keep the workers mind refreshed. Factory
can plug in this FM radio to the PA system and can have their refreshment, beside it can serve as
medium of knowledge as well. The workers can learn about their rights, how to operate their
machines more efficiently. They can share information about the industry in the form of “news”
to avoid rumor during any unwanted situation.

Skill Development through Technical Training Center

In Bangladesh, workers’ productivity and efficiency are much lower. Every factory has to hire
additional manpower apart from the required number to support their expected production due to
inefficiency of the workers. Bangladesh does not have sufficient technical training centers for the
workers. The government can take initiative to set up skill development centers for this particular
sector. This will help a large portion of the unemployed population to get employment, industry
will get efficient workforces.

Academy-Industry Cooperation
The growth of the RMG sector in Bangladesh did not take place by following any established
and universal formula. Rather social and economic conditions, over population, passive role of
regulating agencies helped to grow the sector unplanned. Engaging a huge number of workforces
Bangladesh held a tiny share, around 5%, of global apparel business. Even after four decades of
experience the sector produce low end products. Low efficiency, lack of managerial skills and
uncertainty and unsustainability etc. are the common bottlenecks of this highest earning and
employment generation sector. The industry can open up its potentials with the help of the
academicians. Contrary, academicians can enrich practical knowledge knowing the ground level
realities. The students, as a future entrepreneurs and job applicants get themselves ready to be
replaced in the right positions in right time. Finally, sector can attract potential candidates to fill
the gaps, which is a win-win situation as industry can receive theoretical and updated knowledge
and skills, academy can have hands on experiences.

Branding of Country’s Image

After Tazreen fashions and Rana plaza accidents, the image of the country has been tarnished
badly. With various negative reporting both in national and international level the image has
deteriorated further. Bangladesh has many issues for positive brandings. Particularly in RMG
sector, there are many positive milestones which people are hardly aware. The world’s three top
environment-friendly factories are in Bangladesh. One of the Bangladeshi garment factories,
Vintage Denim Studio, received the LEED certificate in Platinum category in 2012. Envoy
Textiles is the first denim-producing green factory in the world, while Plummy Fashion ranks
first as a green knitwear factory. Bangladesh has a total of 32 green factories. More than 100
green factories are under construction. This initiative has taken the garment and textile factories
of Bangladesh to a new heights[31]. Both the government and apex bodies need to take initiative
to stop negative propaganda and should come forward to bring back their lost brand image.

The buyers, who focus on profit maximization, are the driving forces in the existing system, not
necessarily they look for any permanent and long-term solutions for the problems. Considering
the socio-economic context of Bangladesh, a “set of standard” needs to be formulated.

Future Research agenda

To the best of the researcher’s knowledge, there is no extensive work done before on this very
important and significant issue. It drew the attention of people after some serious accidents took
place and the international community raised their voice against the effectiveness of current
practices of social compliance related to the RMG sector. So the very intention of the researcher
is to highlight this highly important area of the international business in detail – its evolution,
importance, dependency, and reality. Since this single issue- social compliance, depends on
multiple standards as codes of conduct it was difficult to cover all the factors in detail. Present
study covers a general overview of all those areas.

It can be mentioned that due to the nature of the topic and the unavailability of sufficient
literature it was a huge task for the researcher to do. This is the first attempt to introduce social
compliance and its various standards to the academicians and other scholars.

This study was a small, but start up endeavor to give a holistic view of social compliance. There
was no scope for an in depth analysis of any particular issue. It demands further and intensive
work on each single area like child labour, working hours, minimum wages, women
empowerment, buyers’ codes of conduct etc. Hope this study will open up the opportunities for
the future researchers to explore those uncovered areas.

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[9] The MFA was introduced in 1974 as a short-term measure intended to allow developed
countries to adjust to imports from the developing world imposing quotas, It expired on 1
January 2005
[10] GATT was a multilateral agreement regulating international trade, its purpose was the
substantial reduction of tariffs and other trade barriers and the elimination of preferences, on a
reciprocal and mutually advantageous basis, GATT was signed by 23 nations in Geneva on
October 30, 1947 and took effect on January 1, 1948
[11] ATC introduced in 1994, aimed at bringing textiles and clothing within the domain of WTO
rules by abolishing all quotas by the end of 2004.
Retrieved on July 12, 2015 The Safety initiatives of Accord Alliance
[15] The Leadership in Energy and Environment Design is a rating based level is achieved once
a project meets all of the prerequisites and a minimum number of points. Depending on the
number of points earned, a project may be labeled LEED Certified, LEED Silver, LEED Gold, or
LEED Platinum as  per the guidelines of the United States Green Building Council, USGBC
[16] Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. LEED is a green building certification
program that recognizes the best-in-class building strategies and practices.
[17]  Refayet Ullah Mirdha , Garment exporters going green to grab more orders , 2015,The
Daily Star
[19]Henry A. Kissinger, 56th Secretary of State USA,  from September 22, 1973, to January 20,
1977 in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon, 1969 to 1974, and Gerald Ford, 1974 to
1977, made this comments in 1974 on his short visit to Dhaka
[20] Md. Motaher Hossain, Lead auditor, SA8000, WRAP, ISO 9001, Master Trainer
(GIZ/ILO/GAT)
[21] Underprivileged Children’s Educational Programs
[22]Singer Corporation is an American manufacturer of sewing machines, first established as I.
M. Singer & Co. in 1851 by Isaac Merritt Singer, New York, USA
[23]Hennes & Mauritz AB (H&M) is a Swedish multinational retail-clothing company, known
for its fast-fashion clothing. It is ranked the second largest global clothing retailer, just behind
Spain-based Inditexand leads over United States based Gap Inc third largest global clothing
retailer
[24] Annual Report”, MoLE, 2012-13.
[25] Bangladesh Labour Rules 2015 section 107 Annual leave with wage facility: reads 1) As per
Section 117, in case of calculating the Annual or Earned leave, the presence of the worker in the
workplace for the previous 12 (twelve) months has to be considered. 2) Any worker can have
cash money against the unspent Earned leave. However, more than the half of the Earned leave
cannot be cashed out at the end of the year. This type of cashing can be done only once in a
year.3) If any worker dies while having unused leaves with wage facility, the wages against his
unused leaves have to be paid to his/her legal inheritor/s or to the person/s nominated by the
worker.
[26] Section 102 (2) Provided further that the government, if satisfied that in public interest or in
the interest of economic development such exemption or relaxation is necessary, in certain
industries, by order in writing under specific terms and conditions, may relax the provision of
this section or exempt, for a maximum period of six months, from the provision of this section at
a time.
[27]Chapter III of BLA (2006) on Employment of Adolescent section 34 reads “(2) No
adolescent shall be employed or permitted to work in any occupation or establishment unless- (a)
a certificate of fitness in the prescribed form and granted to him by a registered medical
practitioner is in the custody of the employer ; and (b) he carries , while at work, a token giving a
reference to such certificate. (3) Nothing in this sub-section (2), shall apply to the employment of
any adolescent in any occupation or establishment either as an apprentice or the purpose or
receiving vocational training therein: (4) The Government may, where it is of opinion that an
emergency has arisen and the public interest so requires, by notification in the official Gazette,
declare that the provisions of this sub-section (2), shall not be in operation for such period as
may be specified in the notification.
[28] Section 44 Exception in certain cases of employment of children: (1) Notwithstanding
anything contained in this chapter, a child who has completed twelve years of age, may be
employed in such light work as not to endanger his health and development or interfere with
hiseducation; Provided that the hours of work of such child, where he is school going, shall be so
arranged that they do not interfere with is school attendance. (2) All provisions applicable to an
 adolescent workers under this chapter shall mutatis-mutandis apply to such child workers and
disabled workers.
[29] section 205, 206, BLA -2006
[30] Annual Report”, MoLE, 2012-13.
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