CASE STUDY OF TAZREEN FASHIONS LTD

Introduction: The readymade garment (RMG) sector plays a very significant role in the socio-economic development of Bangladesh with more than three million workers, mostly women employed in nearly 4,500 factories. Bangladesh is the world’s biggest exporter of clothing after China, with garments making up 80 percent of its $24 billion annual exports. The garment factories of the country make clothes for brands, including Tesco, Wal-Mart, JC Penney, H&M, Marks & Spencer, Kohl‟s and Carrefour. By 1982, the country had 47 readymade garment factories. In three years the number rose to 587. Now it has more than 4,000.

Factory fires and tragic deaths of helpless garment workers is a regular phenomenon in Bangladesh. Life of garment workers is so pathetic. Each year, Bangladesh faces fire hazards in the garments sector, and it's frustrating, sad and astonishing to know that they have all been preventable fires. Despite repeated requests from concerned citizens who care, governments of past and present hardly took any practical actions to safe-guard the workers from this death trap.

Tazreen Fire Incident

A devastating fire broken out in Tajreen Fashion Limited, a sister concern of Tuba Group at Nischintapur, Ashulia, Saver, Dhaka on 24 November at 6:30 pm and it was managed to bring the blaze under control at around 6 am, after more than 11 hours of frantic efforts. A total of 111 workers died and around 300workers injured in this incident. Only 58 dead bodies was identified which are received by deceased family or relatives. Rest of 53 dead bodies was laid down in Jurain graveyard after DNA sample collection. The fire broke out in the Westside of the ground floor that was being used as a warehouse and was full of inflammable cloths, yearns and garments accessories. As a result the fire spread up to the upper floors as it could not be tamed immediately. The mid level officials prevented workers from leaving the building after the fire had broken out.

“As we desperately tried to escape, after seeing smoke billowing ground floor, AbdurRazzaq, the factory Manager, told us not to leave, as a fire training session was beingstages, with the fire service and civil defense personnel training the workers,” Khairul Hasan, a quality inspector at the factory, told.

It was found that the factory neither had any emergency exit nor adequate fire safetymeasures. And firefighting equipment on its different floors had not been used during theincident. Owner did not follow building code, as the nine-storey factory had permission foronly three floors. High voltage electricity transformer is take place at the ground floor asWell as beside the stairway. The stuck of spin and fabric was much closed to thistransformer. To investigate the incident different six probe committee has formed and three committees submitted their report to concern authority.

Background

When it opened in 2009 the Tazreen Fashion factory employed 1,630 workers and produced T-shirts, polo shirts and jackets for various companies and organizations. These included the US Marines, the Dutch company C&A, the American company Walmart and the Hong Kong based company Li & Fung. The factory is part of The Tuba group which is a major exporter of garments from Bangladesh into the U.S., Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands, whose major clients include Walmart, Carrefour and IKEA.

According to Tazreen Fashions' web site, the factory was flagged in May 2011 with an "orange" grade by a Walmart ethical sourcing official for "violations and/or conditions which were deemed to be high risk".

The notice said that any factory receiving three "orange" grade assessments in a two year time period would not receive Walmart orders for one year. The orange rating was the first the company had received, and was followed by a "yellow" medium risk rating the next August, which pertained to the factory where the fire occurred.

On 25 November, a Walmart spokesman said he was "so far unable to confirm that Tazreen is a supplier to Walmart nor if the document referenced in the article is in fact from Walmart"; the company subsequently terminated its relationship with Tazreen, stating that "The Tazreen factory was not authorized to produce merchandise for Walmart.

A supplier subcontracted work to this factory without authorization and in direct violation of our policies." Walmart critics claim that the company knew about unsafe conditions and blocked efforts to improve them.Documents found via e-mail show that Walmart had subcontracted multiple clothing production orders through the Tazreen factory.

Factory Information:

Revised Regulations

In November 2013, three safety regulation groups the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety and the National Tripartite Action Plan agreed to look into adopting a new unified set of workplace safety standards for clothing manufacturing factories. The new standards would call for increased training of factory inspectors. The inspections would be carried out by two different inspectors with their experience in the field each being a minimum of five years and combining for a minimum total of 20 years. They would also regulate the spacing of exits making sure that there are ways to escape the building from multiple sides and the amount of machinery on each floor will have a cap allowing easy access to each exit.

As a move to increase factory and worker well being over 24 U.S. companies initiated by Wal-Mart and Gap Inc. have signed a pact. The pact holds them accountable to invest in factory inspections and upgrades and personally oversee the inspections of 600 of Bangladesh's clothing factories. Over 100 European brands have agreed to maintain their contracts with Bangladesh's factories and to pay a share of the upgrade and maintenance costs for a two year period while overseeing the inspection of approximately 1,600 clothing factories. The National Government of Bangladesh pledged to inspect 1,200 more factories, which means that well over half of Bangladesh's 5,000 clothing factories will be inspected with these new regulations in the near future.

A brief description of ground floor of Tasreen Fashion Ltd, Nischintapur, Savar:

There are three stairways, including one which is situated at the south-west part of ground floor,another two are situated at the north-west and north-east corner of the ground floor.

All stairways were removed inside of the ground floor.

There is only one main exit and entrance way from ground floor.

There is also a narrow sub-gate at ground floor, but all the time it’s kept lock.

There are two high voltage electric transformer are take place near beside north-east stairway.

All the electric cables are connected with those transformers.

There is a high powerful generator, which is take place at the mid position attached with west side wall of the ground floor.

Whole the ground floor were using as storage of spin, fabric and other raw materials.

The stuck of spin and fabric was much closed to high voltage transformer

Relevant Information:

Fire starts at around 06: 30pm on 24th November 2012 Fire controlled at around 06:00am on 25th November 2012

What were the fire safety measures? It was found that there were some fire extinguishers, hosepipe and separate water line.

Worker’s get any training regarding fire safety? Authority provided short time training on fire safety around 30 to 40 workers, 3/4

workers from each floor.

Any fire drill happened in last 2 years? Every month or once in two month’s authority conducted only evacuation mug exercise.

Who responded immediately? Initially factory authority, factory workers, outside people tries to control the fire. 10 units of fire service from the Dhaka Export Processing Zone, Saver, Gazipur,

Mohammadpur and headquarters, rushed to the scene and managed to bring the blaze under control at around 6 am, after more than 11 hours of frantic efforts.

Fire Service & Civil Defense along with Bangladesh Army, Police, Rapid Action Battalion retrieving charred bodies from the inside the building.

Total Loss of Resources (approximate): According to the owner of the industry Mr. Delwar Hosen, the total financial loss will be

at least 200 cores Tk.

Immediate response to victims (who lost lives) Out of 111 deaths 43 deceased families received BDT 600,000 from Prime Minister. This

fund is developed by the contribution of Relief Fund of Prime Minister, Byers, BGMEA, Labour Welafre Foundation

Main reason

The factory only had three narrow staircases for the workers; the rest of the staircases hadbeen removed from the inside of ground floor.

There were no emergency exits or stairways.

There were insufficient fire defense materials, most of them were unused.Most of the workers were unable to use those materials.

There were no automated fire defense systems.

There were no sufficient water sources inside or outside of the factory.

The ground floors were being using as a storage facility which was unplanned.

Two high voltage electricity transformers are take place at the ground floor, which is veryrisky.

The size of main entrance was not suitably sized for the number of employees and size ofthe building.

The front entrance and other side entrances of the factory were very congested.

Remedy

Electrical Installation The design, construction, maintenance or alteration of installations shall be carried out by

qualified persons. All electrical systems shall be constructed, installed, protected, maintained, inspected and

tested, so as to prevent danger so far as is reasonably practicable. All electrical conductors shall be of sufficient size and current-carrying capacity for the

purposes for which they are intended. Every electrical joint and connection shall be of proper construction as regards

conductance, insulation and mechanical strength. Every installation and every circuit shall be protected by means of fuse, circuit breakers

and earthling. Every circuit shall be so arranged as to prevent the persistence of dangerous earth leakage

currents Cable with the colour combination green and yellow shall be reserved exclusively for the

identification of protective conductor and shall not be used for any other purpose. All fixed luminaries and lamps shall be placed or guarded so as to prevent ignition of any

material which in the conditions of use foreseen are likely to be placed in proximity to the luminaries or lamps. Any shade or guard used for this purpose shall be suitable to withstand the heat from the luminaries or lamp.

The layout is designed for a ground floor of a garments industry where floor space is 300 meter square, total worker 150 , 10 fire extinguisher is placed in distance between 75 feet .

In multi-storied buildings, staircases are the means of escape during any fire. The architect should provide many alternate staircases to be used in case one staircase is under fire.

Building should be constructed with fire resisting materials. Adequate exits and proper escape routes should be designed Protection against fire and smoke should be ensured Electrical wiring must be properly designed, installed and maintained Escape routes should be lighted at all times, kept clear, be indicated by signs Regular fire drills should be held Doors should be protected and should open along the direction of escape

Doors should not open on the steps and sufficient space in the landing should be provided.

Smoke/Fire alarm systems must be installed Adequate number of extinguishers should be provided Four types of portable fire extinguishers using water or foam, or dry powder or carbon

dioxide are available. make enough ventilator or window.

Conclusion:

Garments factories are helping much to solve our unemployment problem. At the same time it is creating new problems like environmental pollution, degraded lifestyle of garment workers, settlement problems, health problems, etc. Here, we shall discuss about the Fire accidents in garments factories, problems that are created by unplanned work environment, disorganized workers, poor building design, and largely due to the lack of concern of factory-owners on this issue.

Bangladesh has entered into the world market through the products of our garments factories which are made by poor Bangladeshis of whom majority are women. But this light of prosperity is darkened when we cannot guarantee our workers' safety and security. Workers are less secure as monetary remunerations are never beyond just enough, sometimes even less.

References

1."The daily star" news paper

2. " Industrial compliance & certification" Class lecture.

3. Textile learner .com

4.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Dhaka_fire

5. http://www.dhakatribune.com/tags/Tazreen%20Garments

6. http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2012-12-27/after-the-tazreen-fire-in-bangladesh-more-fires-in-garment-factories

7. http://www.steinandpartners.com/sustainability/compliance/bangladesh-garment-factory-disaster-timeline

8. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-25483685