We need safety net for garment workers

After all the talk of "bouncing back better" in our industry during the past 18-months, we are still failing the people who make our clothes. Garment workers have been described by one human rights organisation as the "weakest link" in the fashion supply chain. When the pandemic hit, they were the first to be hit, and they continue to suffer.

My concern is that we have not learned our lessons and that garment workers will continue to bear the brunt of economic shocks in our sector in future, unless we introduce fundamental, binding changes.

The underlying issue here is that there is a lack of social security system for the workers employed in the Bangladesh apparel industry. Unlike in other countries, there is no government furlough for months on end, no large redundancy pay-outs, and no guarantee of long-term social security payments. This means that when an economic shock hits, the only thing workers often have left to rely on is their (usually meagre) savings.

Most garment workers will be lucky if they have enough money put aside to pay their rent and other bills for a month. It has been no surprise to see thousands of workers returning to their families in the villages when job losses/lay-offs have begun to stack up in the garment hubs during the pandemic.

Has there been any help for garment workers? At the moment, there is the Workers Welfare Fund in Bangladesh. This is a scheme whereby apparel exporting factories contribute 0.03 percent of their export value (which is about USD 10 million per year and will increase with the increase of the country's apparel export volumes) and from this fund apparel workers are paid for injury or death coverage.

As the problems of the past 18 months have shown us, this scheme is clearly not enough to provide the safety net which our garment workers need for their broader financial needs. First of all, amount such USD 10 million is not enough; because there are about 4 million garment workers in Bangladesh, and thus in a time of crisis when everyone will be affected, this will mean only USD 2.5 per worker. Moreover, the current Workers Welfare Fund only covers injury or death schemes. But the safety net will also include support for the workers such as income support during crises/lockdowns, unemployment benefits, severance, etc.

The government in consultation with the manufacturers, buyers and labour leaders can form the safety net for the workers. In agreement with all the stakeholders, the government may allocate around 0.5 percent of total export value to this safety net fund. Such a move would put the amount of money raised to billions of dollars rather than millions and might realistically mean that garment workers were adequately protected from economic shocks.

This money could be completely ring-fenced by the manufacturers where invoicing is concerned so that it was ear-marked specifically for garment workers' protection. That way, the money would be completely protected. I believe most ethical fashion brands would get behind such a safety net, provided it was transparently implemented and monitored with accountability. Moreover, if done properly, it could be sold as a major reason why brands should source from Bangladesh compared to other locations. Brands would also be able to satisfy themselves that they were doing something meaningful and tangible to support garment workers.

Are there any alternatives? In the past year we have seen the ILO establish an initiative which was intended to support garment workers. However, this "call to action" has so far, after 12-months of being launched, failed to achieve anything significant.

We have also had proposals from NGOs for brands to negotiate enforceable agreements to support stronger social protections for workers related to unemployment and severance benefits, in line with relevant ILO conventions, through the establishment of a "Severance Guarantee Fund".

The purpose of such a fund, we are told, would be to pay severance and outstanding wages in cases where employers have gone insolvent, or otherwise have terminated workers and can't be compelled to pay. The Severance Guarantee Fund would also mitigate the devastating consequences of unemployment for workers in the future by financially supplementing or strengthening government social protection programmes for unemployment or severance benefits.

In fact, there are many crossovers between the proposals for such a fund and the idea I am suggesting. In both cases, there would be binding agreements between brands and their suppliers to ensure that workers were never left destitute and without receiving wages and payments owed.

Long-term, we need to give much more thought to how we can implement systems and processes which guarantee garment workers are not left high and dry as a result of adverse events. As an industry, we all have a huge responsibility, with buyers themselves having duties under the UN Guiding Principles of Business and Human Rights as well as under the OECD Guidelines for Responsible Supply Chains in the Garment Sector to respect the human rights of workers in their supply chain. This includes making sure that the workers who are the drivers of this industry are protected.