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We still do not have a good reason why Migros and Coop, the two Swiss retail giants, have refused to sign the Bangladesh Accord for the garment industry, concluded UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings in his remarks to the Annual Symposium of the Swiss organisation Droits sans Frontières (Rights without Borders) in Berne.

The Bangladesh Accord, signed in May 2013, broke new ground as two mega global unions - IndustriALL and UNI - made a legally binding agreement to improve garment factory safety in Bangladesh. Almost 2000 lives had been lost culminating in the Rana Plaza factory collapse in April 2014 with the loss of over 1000 lives.

The tragedy marked a turning point and led the unions to conclude that voluntary confidential, closed inspection processes were a model that miserably failed the people of Bangladesh. The Accord was a step up: legally binding, independent inspections, transparent reporting, corrective action plans, and worker empowerment characterise the agreement.

18 months on and over 1000 factories have been inspected with 200-300 inspections per month, 250 reports have been posted on the website. 17 buildings were found to be structurally unsafe and required temporary evacuation or closure. As a result 30,000 workers are no longer working in seriously unsafe buildings.

The Droits Sans Frontières symposium gathered over 150 participants from a diverse group of NGOs, academics, activists and unions and the sense of the symposium was that self-regulation did not provide an adequate rules base to ensure responsible business conduct by multinational companies.