Beyond the Accord

Eight years ago, one of the worst industrial disasters in history—the collapse of an eight storey commercial building in a sub-district of Dhaka—demonstrated to the world the heavy price of producing cheap clothing to fuel the "fast fashion" industry for consumers in the global North. After the Rana Plaza disaster in 2013, the international response concentrated on technocratic approaches to address the lack of worker safety measures by focusing on fire, electrical, and structural improvements to a portion of the country's registered factories. The Accord's tagline is: The Accord helps ready-made garment (RMG) factories in Bangladesh become safe—and stay safe—for millions of workers.According to the Accord's website, 93 percent of factories have completed the initial remediation process on safety issues that were identified during inspections. After spending USD 11 million per year on supporting engineers and monitoring staff, we must ask ourselves eight years later, are garment workers in Bangladesh safer now than they were before?