Amirul Amin is welcomed to City Hall

Last Friday, I welcomed Amirul Amin, President of the National Garment Workers’ Federation (NGWF) in Bangladesh to City Hall to speak about the need to improve working conditions in Bangladesh. In July of this year, I seconded a motion to the London Assembly calling for the Mayor and GLA family to use contractors signed up to the IndustriALL Accord. 

IndustriALL is the global union for garment workers, which has developed an Accord on Fire and Building Safety. This has been signed by many major British retailers. Amirul Amin is in the UK to speak at the Trades Unions Conference which started at the weekend. There are 3.5million people working in Bangladeshi garment factories that produce goods for export to the global market, principally Europe and North America.

I was especially pleased to welcome Mr Amin to City Hall last week to hear about the struggle he is leading against sweatshop conditions in Bangladesh’s factories. The National Garment Workers’ Federation fights for the rights of garment workers in Bangladesh and I support their calls to improve the appalling conditions facing many workers in the factories there.

Despite the tragedy of the Rana Plaza Factory collapse back in April, 8 Global brands still have not signed up to the Safety Accord.  Please help change by urging them to change this.  You can participate by clicking here.