BKMEA has taken 2 types of steps to ensure social compliance:

Pre-requisite to obtain membership in (BKMEA): Before giving the membership to any applied factory, investigation is done from the association to check the mentioned requirements and decision of membership is given accordingly:

Mandatory Group Insurance: BKMEA has made Group Insurance Mandatory for all of its member units. An agreement has been signed with Sadharon Bima Corporation (SBC); (a govt. life insurance company) in this regard. New membership and renewal of old membership are not issued until the applicant complies with the rule. Under the agreement each member unit has to pay premium of Tk 8,000.00 per annum eligible to have insurance claim of maximum 20 persons. Member factories are getting the insurance claim for its workers/employees for accidental or normal death and permanent disability. BKMEA is very careful to pay the insurance claim to the representatives of worker regularly. In 2006, BKMEA provided insurance claim to 12 workers and up to April of 2007 total payment has been made 8 lakhs against such claim.

Social Compliance Monitoring Program: BKMEA has started a ‘Social Compliance Monitoring Program’ in collaboration with German Technical Cooperation (GTZ). The project is started from February 2007 and it will continue up to end of 2009. Ultimate goal of the project is to ensure social compliance in all the member factories of BKMEA within 3 years. Already BKMEA has appointed a 15 members monitoring team and intensive training is going on to make them more competent. A Checklist has been developed based on the National Labour Law including Child Labor, Minimum Wage, Weekly Holiday, Maternity benefit and all other basic requirements. The monitoring team has started the ‘Preliminary’ visit in all the factories considering the basic requirements of Check list. An Information Management System (IMS) has been developed to provide input of these filed data. On the basis of the Preliminary visit report, factories will be graded in 4 categories (A, B, C & D) according to their social compliance status. Then Corrective Action Plan (CAP) given and progress of the factories will be measured through follow up visits. The project has included on-site training for the lower graded factories (C &D) and workshops for mid level management of all factories. In extreme case, BKMEA is thinking to take penalty measures for factories violating compliance related laws after giving several warnings.

BKMEA has taken several awareness raising programs:

1. CSR Workshops for Factory Owners: Development of a Compliant Factory is largely dependent on the intention and capability of an owner. To convince owners and provide them updated information regarding world compliance scenario, BKMEA is going to arrange CSR seminars with the owners of the member factories. Nationally and Internationally reputed persons are being invited as guest speaker and open discussion sessions are being organized to encourage for making their factories socially compliant. The workshops will be organized in major zones where garments factories are mostly located. At first phase it will be held in Dhaka, Narayanganj and Chittagong.

2. Social Compliance Training for Factory Owners & Other Top Level Management: BKMEA is going to arrange trainings for owners and other top level management. The focus area of the training is social environmental compliance, productivity improvement included with work place safety. The training sessions will be both in Dhaka and Narayanganj area where most of the knitting factories are located.

3. Publication for Awareness Raising: To create awareness on Compliance BKMEA has published handbook in local language on compliance issues, a number of posters and stickers .All the published materials have been distributed already to the member factories.

The handbook has been titled as“Compliance & Relevant Laws: Guide Lines for Implementation”. The Book is in Easy Bengali for quick understanding of owners and labors.

Objectives of the Handbook are:

• To provide basic compliance knowledge and implementation procedure to the owners of the RMG factories specially working in the knit sector.
• To give a handy reference on crucial and frequently required parts of labor and industrial law of Bangladesh
• Disseminate the information to the workers and raise their awareness level on social compliance, labor and industrial law through workshops, seminars and TV advertisements.

the The poster is on “How to use a fire extinguisher”. It is in Bengali for quick understanding of workers and other factory persons. The stickers have been published to ensure workers basic rights. The 4 stickers are on: child labor, weekly & other holidays, maternity leave & benefits and on time payment of wages. SEDF helped BKMEA to publish the poster and stickers.

Some other posters & Stickers on labour rights, responsibility of owner and environmental issue are going to be published soon. GTZ is helping the association to develop the upcoming awareness raising materials.

BKMEA hopes that the publications on compliance will create awareness among the members and they will take serious initiatives to follow the rules mentioned here.