Abstract
: The aim of this research paper is to find out the compliance
factors practiced
by readymade garments
industry as wel
as
chal
enges to
implement it. Researchers
has found that
compliance
issues
are not same in al section of garments
such as knitting section,
dyeing
section, fabric finishing section, cutting section, sewing section,
finishing
section have different compliance
elements in their different
wing. Though
the compliance issues
are clearly defined,
the
employees and
owners are not in real
situation to implement
this.
Chal
enges, include less educated managers, high cost to implement,
bureaucratic
problems, employer-employee relationships, ignorance of
employee
welfare, are raising unrest in garments
sector day by day.
Garments owners
should give emphasis
on this issue
to keep and
Introduction
Since its
commencement in 1987,
the Ready Made
Garments (RMG)
industry of
Bangladesh is trying
to fulfill the
requirements the buyers.
In
recent years,
compliance issues are
the major components
of the buyer
requirements that
must be ensured
by the Bangladeshi
garments
manufacturers. According
to business dictionary
dot com, “Compliance
is
the
Certification or confirmation that the doer of an action (such as the writer
of an
audit report), or
the manufacturer or
supplier of a
product, meets the
requirements of
accepted practices, legislation,
prescribed rules and
regulations,
specified standards, or the terms of a contract.”
Another definition
is given by Baral (2010)
“Compliance means to
comply
with something
or yield to the wishes
of another. Compliance
ensures all
labor
rights and facilities according to the buyer code of conduct. The aim of
compliance
is to maintain strictly the labor law.”
* Assistant Professor, Department of Business
Administration, BGMEA University of
Fashion
& Technology, 105 SR Tower, Sector-7, Uttara, Dhaka-1230
** Senior
Lecturer, Department of
Knitwear Manufacturing Technology,
BGMEA
University
of Fashion & Technology, 105 SR Tower, Sector-7, Uttara, Dhaka-1230
But in many
cases, the manufacturers
are reluctant to
ensure the
implementation
compliance in their
workplaces. The result
is that most
of
situation the labor forces are the sufferer; more than hundred
labors lost their
lives at Tazrin
fashion by firing,
and building collapse
at Rana Plaza
is the
historic scandal of Bangladesh where more that one thousand labors
died as
well as thousands
lost their normal
life loosing their
hand, legs or
parts of
their body.
Not only the
safety issues of
the labor force
but also the
environmental
protections (green environment)
are the zenith
demand of the
buyers. To
ensure these compliance issues, sometimes buyers are creating
pressure on
the manufacturers, even
GSP facility at
US market, the
largest portion of
exporting, has been suspended due to the absence of sufficient
compliance
issues at Ready Made Garments industry of Bangladesh.
Objectives of the study
Objectives of this paper are as follows:
a) To know the compliance
practices by the garments industry of
Bangladesh;
b) To explore the chal
enges on implementing compliance in garments industry;
c) Finally, to recommend
some suggestions.
Methodology of the study
Though the paper
is fully secondary
data based and
descriptive in nature,
researchers visited some
compliance and non-compliance garments
and
talked to compliance
managers. To fulfill
the objectives of
the paper,
secondary data has
been collected from
scholarly article, periodicals
of
financial research institutions, daily newspaper, weekly and
monthly reviews,
websites, and books. Moreover, in-depth research article published
in home
and abroad used to design this paper.
Compliance Practiced by Garments Industry
Following
Figure is the code of conducts Regarding Compliance Issues.
Compliance
Practices and Challenges in Ready Made Garments Industry
Source:
Lal Mohan Baral (2010), International Journal of Engineering &
Technology
IJET-IJENS Vol:10 No:02
29
30
ii. Set fusing machine
Development Compilation, Vol. 10. Number 02. March 2014
Sector
wise compliance issues are mentioned below.
a)
Knitting Section
i. Plant layout: According to the requirements
of the factory plan. Plant
layout
must be prepared by plan consultant. Normally producers build
the
floor first then prepare plan layout but it is required to estimate the
floor
size first and then prepare plan layout.
ii. Evacuation plan: It must be prepared by
consultant side by side plan
layout.
iii. Needle maintenance: Requirements of needle in
production floor and
collect
broken needle parts like needle butt, less, hook, etc.
iv. Quality control for gray fabrics: In gray
fabrics there are some faults like
hole,
needle mark, oil spot, thick and thin etc. which required to check
for
quality control.
v. Safety measures (goggles, hear aid, metallic
shoes): Goggles are used
to
protect eyes from fiber dust etc. Metallic shoes are used for safety
from
heavy spares of machine.
vi. Apron for operators: Aprons are needed for
operators to avoid accidents
from
running parts of the machine.
b)
Dyeing Section
i. Chemical proof Gloves, Apron: Chemical proof
gloves are needed to
protect
hands from chemical reaction. Aprons are also mandatory to
protect
from accident of spare parts of machine.
ii. Drainage for effluent: Send all waste water
from dyeing to effluent
treatment
plant (ETP) for processing.
iii. Steam line must be insulated because if steam
lines are not insulated
heat
transfer rate is high of the line and sometimes people touch the
line
which causes in‡jvuries.
c)
Fabric Finishing Section
i. Stainless steel Fabrics handling trolley:
With stainless steel trolley it
causes
rust in fabrics.
ii. Gas should be supplied in uninterrupted:
Without uninterrupted gas
supply
the plant not running smoothly.
d)
Cutting Section
i. Metal gloves for cutting operators: Metal
gloves must use for cutting
master
to avoid in‡jvuries.
ii. Same lot numbers fabrics use for fabric
laying to avoid color shading.
e)
Sewing Section
i. Line setup according to product i.e. product
layout.
ii. Setup inline quality controller.
iii. Set red and green light for every
machine.
f)
Finishing Section
i. Set metal detectors
Challenging Issues
a) Most of
the managers, working
in top level
to lower level,
got great
liability to
implement compliance issues,
are not well
educated in their
respective field.
Informal recruitment, low
literacy levels, wage
discrimination,
irregular payment and short contracts of service are very
common
practices in the RMG factories in Bangladesh. It is true that the
country still
en‡jvoys some comparative
advantage in manufacturing
garment
products based on low labor costs (Baral, 2010).
b) Cost involvement,
raises the cost
of production as
well as reduces
the
profit
level, is the major issue to implement the compliance factors. Main
attraction of
the buyers to buy garments
products from Bangladesh,
cheap labor
cost, ensured sellers
high profit, is
lower rate than
other
countries
but garments owner are reluctant to ensure compliance issues.
Others regard
their workers as
little more than
bonded labor, hired
to
provide
maximum labor at minimum cost (Mahmud & Kabeer, 2003).
c) Barrier from
governmental organization, bribery
from collecting export
registration to
collecting payment, and or slower
procedures to move
files relevant
compliance issues, is another challenge
for garments
industry
to implement compliance.
d) New and experienced
employees, working in present systems, going on
for longer
period of time
in the factory
premises, are reluctant
to be
adopted with
new system. Moreover,
regular practice of
compliance
codes
of conduct can bring higher price of
products, lower labor unrest,
less worker
turnover rate, highest
worker morality, highest
productivity
and product
quality, smooth industrial
relation as well
as global image
and
reputation (Rahman, 2010).
e) Workplace condition,
inside the factory
recommended by ILO,
is not
standard. But
(Kabeer, 2004) revealed
that most of
these protests
revolved around
issues of wages and overtime
rather than workplace
conditions, because,
as workers themselves
said, “getting paid
their
wages
on time is the biggest problem of garment workers.”
f) Lack of welfare
such as medical
facilities, day care
centre, provident
fund etc
is absent in
many more garments
factory. Berik (2008)
found
that
one factory did not
have any workers’
organization, while the
other
two
had a Workers’ Welfare Committee. Yet either workers did not know
of the
Committee’s existence or
did not trust
it because the
worker
representative
was selected by management. In the Dhaka focus group,
non-EPZ
factory employees reported that their factories had no union (or
other
worker organization) presence.
g) Employer employee
relationship, relevant to
decision making,
dominating creativity
and productivity of the employees,
is not good.
X
Compliance
Practices and Challenges in Ready Made Garments Industry
theory, given
by Douglas McGregor
in 1960, closely
supervised and
comprehensive systems
of controlling employees,
is the commonly
practiced
by Bangladeshi garment owners.
31
32
Development
Compilation, Vol. 10. Number 02. March 2014
h) Safety measures i.e.
fire fighting, evacuation plan of plant, stairs etc.
should
be established according to international standards.
h) Women
employees, working in
garments industry equivalent
and many
cases more
risky than male
employees, are discriminated
in wages as
well as
working hours. Huq
(2003) clarified how
much of the
discrimination, ill
treatment and violence
women suffer is
connected to
the ways
in which their
bodies, their sexuality,
their reproductive roles
and
their health are perceived, valued and constructed by their families,
their
colleagues and by society at large.
i) Safety measures such
as fire fighting, evacuation plan, stairs etc are not
sufficient
and workers are not well enough trained up to use those at the
time
of accident which causes lost of lives. Mahmud (2003) revealed that
garments factory
consists of the
absence of written
contracts, long
working hours,
delayed payment of
wages and routine
violations of
health
and safety standards.
Recommendations
a) At first, the garments owner should be aware
of compliance issues
and
then old and new employees should be trained up.
b) Garments owners must be proactive about the
compliance factors
by
which they can improve the working conditions and satisfy their
buyers.
c) Recently foreign donors and or buyers are
releasing huge amount of
money
to ensure the compliance issues in garment industry of
Bangladesh.
This donation must be used properly.
d) Work
station must be
established as per
the recommendations of
the certified
bodies. It is not only
the quality parameters
which are
important towards
acceptance of the
product as per
the intended
end use,
but also the
working environment in
which the garments
are
to be produced, is equally important so that sweatshop concept
is totally
taken care of and the
code of conduct
must be stretched
towards
achieving the objectives of social compliance issues (Baral,
2010).
e) As per Labor Law 2006, medical center and day
care centre must be
adopted
by every garments firm, but the owners are reluctant to
introduce
it due to cost involvement. The law enforcing agencies
should
ensure this matter.
f) X and
Y theory of
management may be
combined to improve
employee employer
relationship to ensure
the potentiality of the
employees
through enhancing quality and quantity.
g) Women rights can be established as per
guidelines of human rights
organizations.
Conclusion
Buyers, always creating
pressure on garments
owners of Bangladesh,
are
always aware of
compliance factors in
international standard. Researchers
would like to
suggest both the
sellers of garments
and policy makers
to
ensure compliance issues so that new doors can be explored in new
areas of
the world garments
market for Bangladeshi
products. Awareness of the
garments owners will be sufficient to do this which will open new
dimension
of the garments industry of Bangladesh. Main limitation of this
research is the
absence of primary
data. Other researchers
may conduct new
research on
compliance issues in
Bangladesh by using collecting
and analyzing primary
data.
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