Organizations closely following the Bangladesh agreement are concerned about the continuation of the agreement. “This was groundbreaking at the time and it has improved a lot,” says Christa de Bruin of Clean Clothes Campaign. “But not all factories have the right alarm systems installed yet and workers have a safe way out. So there is still a lot of work to do.”
“We know that the consultation model, without a binding agreement, will not do the dirty work in Bangladesh,” said Christy Hoffman of the international trade union Uni Global Union. “We’ve been working with these brands for eight years now and I’m very optimistic that we’ll get there. However, there are still fundamental things we don’t agree on, so we still have a long way to go.”
The Brands Association, which represents the clothing brands, did not respond to questions from the NOS. So far, clothing retailers have called for ASOS and Tchibo to go ahead with a binding agreement. Of the Dutch brands, Zeeman, G-Star and We Fashion also state that they support this in principle.
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