Swiss firms pressured to sign Bangladesh safety accord

Five years after the factory complex collapse that killed 1,138 textile workers in Bangladesh, 145 international brands have signed an accord to improve factory safety. Only one of them is Swiss.  To mark the fifth anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster, Swiss social justice NGO Public Eye has written an open letter addressed to Swiss clothing retailers Chicorée, Coop, Mammut, Manor, Migros and Zebra. It urges them to sign the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh.  According to Public Eye, Bangladesh is the fourth leading source of clothing imported into Switzerland. The accord is the world’s first legally binding measure to improve workplace safety for the over two million garment workers there. On top of the 1,138 deaths, over 2,000 people were injured in the Rana Plaza accident on April 23, 2013.  Under the accord, inspection teams have since screened over 1,600 factories and identified more than 118,500 dangers related to fire safety, electrical installations and ...