Ten years since its collapse, the Rana Plaza tragedy continues to haunt our industry. As activists and academics reflect on the incremental progress made since fashion's deadliest factory collapse in 2013, Bangladesh's fight for safe conditions and fair pay for factory workers has not yet been won. 

Located in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Rana Plaza housed five separate garment factories in an eight-storey building — five sets of machinery, five inventories of clothing and fabric bales, and five sets of staff crammed into tight rows. The Rana Plaza disaster symbolised not only the lack of factory safety in fashion's supply chains but a matrix of systemic issues — from garment worker vulnerability to the colonial power dynamics between brands and suppliers.

The Rana Plaza Solidarity Collective has labelled the event a "mass industrial homicide" in which at least 1,138 people died, including several rescue workers, and a further 2,500 were injured or disabled. The aftermath of the tragedy saw the creation of one of the world's toughest factory safety agreements, the International Accord on Fire and Building Safety. Signed weeks after Rana Plaza, the legally binding landmark agreement brought brands, manufacturers and union representatives together to check and fix buildings and advise workers of their rights. It was the first time fashion industry regulations forced global fashion brands to acknowledge their direct responsibility for factory conditions in their supply chains and established ground-breaking levels of accountability and transparency. There have been nearly 56,000 safety inspections across more than 2,400 garment factories in Bangladesh and more than 140,000 safety improvements. The factory refurbishments protect more than two million workers.

The Accord initiative was widely viewed as the fashion industry's most successful safety campaign, spurring efforts to expand its reach beyond Bangladesh. However, the agreement was not considered a long-term solution and expired in 2021, and the Ready-Made Garment Sustainability Council replaced the Accord in June 2020.

What is the Ready-Made Garment Sustainability Council?

Also known as the RSC, the Ready-Made Garment Sustainability Council was officially registered in May 2020 as a safety monitoring body of the RMG sector in Bangladesh. This private initiative was set up by three constituents: Shondhi Limited representing the industry, the Brands Association for Textile & RMG Sustainability in Supply Chains and the Trade Union Association for Textile & RMG Sustainability in Supply Chains. In June 2020, the RSC inherited the operations, staff, policies and infrastructure of the local Bangladesh Accord office and is now equipped to implement health and safety inspections and remediation monitoring, safety training and safety complaints handling functions. 

A decade on from one of the biggest disasters in the textile industry, the RSC continues to monitor factories, ensuring all outstanding safety issues are remediated and verified as correctly fixed and that the labour-management Safety Committees in the factories are qualified to monitor and address workplace safety on a daily basis. The RSC aims to jointly implement a sectorial safety standard minimising health peril, preventing avoidable accidents, and empowering factory management and workers through training and capacity building. But unfortunately, the RSC is not considered a legally binding contract, more of a pledge meaning any brands or factories at risk of violating the agreement do not face as serious a repercussion as the Accord.