The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety cracked the whip, cancelling safety standard improvement process in 23 garment factories as they failed to show sufficient progress in their compliance initiatives.

 “Since these factories have failed to show enough evidence to comply with the Alliance pre-approval and remediation process, they are designated as ‘suspended approval’. Their names have been removed from the Alliance factories list,” a letter sent to the factories signed by M Rabin, managing director of Alliance Bangladesh said.

According to it, if a company wants to regain the status, it will need to initiate a new inspection and demonstrate commitment by fulfilling the Alliance’s remediation and other requirements.

The Alliance informed those factories about its decision through separate letters sent to them. “Alliance takes factory compliance very seriously, as failure by any factory to comply may perpetuate unsafe working conditions and put workers at risk,” the letter said.

Some of the factories had refused to comply with the Alliance recommendations as they didn’t have work orders from the signatory brands.

Some of the factories failed to make visible progress with the safety recommendations while some didn’t follow the suggestions made by the government’s review panel, Alliance officials said.

Fully compliant, the Alliance was formed after the Rana Plaza building collapse in 2013 that killed over a thousand workers.