Worker-Driven Social Responsibility Network

The Bulk of the Iceberg: A Critique of the Stern Center’s Report on Worker Safety in Bangladesh

The Stern Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University released a report in December 2015, “Beyond the Tip of the Iceberg: Bangladesh’s Forgoten Apparel Workers.” It argues that the factory inspection programs developed after the Rana Plaza disaster to address worker safety in Bangladesh exclude the majority of workers and are therefore reaching only the “tip of the iceberg.” We have carefully reviewed the Stern researchers’ methodology and data, and come to the opposite conclusion. Contrary to Stern’s assertions, more than 70% of garment workers in Bangladesh are covered by the Accord and the Alliance, and if we include workers employed in factories inspected by the ILO-advised National Initiative, the percentage of covered workers reaches 89%. We also find that Stern, due to a series of errors in data collection and analysis, greatly overestimated the number of formal factories and the size of the workforce.

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