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ILO / BANGLADESH
STORY: ILO / BANGLADESH
TRT: 1.45
SOURCE: CH UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 16 MAY 2013, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
FILE – 2012, PALAIS DES NATIONS, GNEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Wide shot, exterior Palais des Nations
16 MAY 2013, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
2. Wide shot, Press Room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Gilbert Houngbo, Deputy Director-General, International Labour Organization:
"There is a determination to turn the page, to do something; we can sense it from all parties but our call and the way we insist on the fact that actions have to happen, and happen now."
4. Cutaway, press conference
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Gilbert Houngbo, Deputy Director-General, International Labour Organization:
"We are against any idea of boycotting the company that will force them to leave the country because that will mean the industry in Dhaka or in Bangladesh, going down and those that are going to pay the price, is going to be the same three, four million women that are already suffering."
6. Cutaway, journalists
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Dan Rees, Director, ILO-IFC, Better Work Programme: "Your question 'why should we believe change should happen now?'; it's understandable, that question, and it's easy in these circumstances to get cynical and feel you've heard it all before, for the ILO is not the time to cynical. Now is the time to call everybody to take action, be it the government, the employees associations, the individual employees, the workers organizations, and of course the international supply chains. And what will change things, or what stand the most chance of changing things is everybody working together to their best efforts. And I think the one positive out of the terrible tragedy at Rana plaza, is there appears to be a renewed commitment and a renewed urgency to do different things and to do them to a greater scale."
8. Cutaway, Press Room
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Dan Rees, Director, ILO-IFC, Better Work Programme: "It's not for the ILO to say which company should join which initiative, right. So, It's clear that this accord is received a very significant amount of support. It's not for us to say, to comment on the motives of individual companies or what they're doing, it's up to them to do that."
10. Various shot, conference
The United Nations labour agency today (16 May) welcomed an agreement signed by international fashion brands and retailers, and trade unions to prevent workplace disasters and insisted action had to happen immediately on improving conditions in factories in Bangladesh.
Gilbert Houngbo, the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Deputy Director-General, told journalists at a press conference in Geneva that “There is a determination to turn the page, to do something; we can sense it from all parties but our call and the way we insist on the fact that actions have to happen, and happen now,”
More than 1,100 people died when the nine-storey Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh collapsed on 24 April.
According to the ILO, the signatories to the Accord on Building and Fire Safety committed “to the goal of a safe and sustainable Bangladeshi Ready Made Garment (RMG) industry in which no worker needs to fear fires, building collapses, or other accidents that could be prevented with reasonable health and safety measures.”
The companies that signed on, such as Zara and H&M, have 45 days from the signing to develop and agree on an implementation plan to monitor their textile production in Bangladesh. But Walmart, along with several other US retailers, said it would not participate.
Dan Rees, Director of the ILO-IFC, Better Work Programme said at the same briefing, "It's not for the ILO to say which company should join which initiative. It's clear that this accord is received a very significant amount of support. It's not for us to say, to comment on the motives of individual companies or what they're doing, it's up to them to do that."
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