The after-effect of the recent disasters in Bangladesh has made the companies and their workers conscious of potential dangers and also taught them how to act in case of any eventuality. A recent case in point is the alertness of workers at Medlar Apparels Limited, Ashulia (Savar), who prevented a mishap by quick action, using fire fighting equipments at the factory to extinguish a potential inferno within 15 minutes. Giving the details, Irtiza Zulfiqar Arif, Executive Director of the company narrated, “During Zohr prayers, an electric short circuit sparked a fire on the ground floor of the factory. As soon as the workers saw the fire they ran to the firefighting equipment to extinguish the fire and even before the fire service arrived, they had put out the fire; 130 workers took part in this. At least 11 were seriously injured in the attempt.”
Being one of their largest buyers, when VF Corporation heard about the whole incident they wanted to encourage such proactive action and decided to award the employees for their deed. At a felicitating function VFC Country Manager Dunham Grey handed out packets containing edible items. According to Shahidul Haque, GM – Administration, the factory lost at least Tk. 250,000 worth of equipment in the fire. “At first VFC offered to give 10 kg rice and 10 kg lentils and it was the workers who said it sounded like relief supplies. Then we decided on this gift and arranged the appreciation programme,” said Shahidul Haque.
VF Corporation sources US $ 500 million worth of readymade garments from 65 factories in Bangladesh for its various brands and from Medlar they procure for their brand Wrangler. “From Medlar we take US $ 20-25 million worth of clothes,” shared Grey. VFC has recently announced that it will spend US $ 17 million to improve factory safety in Bangladesh. VFC is a member of Alliance, the US buyers’ organization formed after the Rana Plaza incident. “For us it’s safety first. If we make losses we can recover that. But lives lost cannot be returned, so we’re training our workers to fight fire and already 2,500 have taken training,” concluded Zulfiqar Arif.
