Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh. Sohel Rana, the plaza's owner, ignored warnings from safety inspectors that the building was about to collapse and forced around 5,000 garment workers to return to work. The collapse of the Rana Plaza resulted in 1,129 deaths and over 2,500 injured.
A week after the disaster an agreement was reached between retailers in the textile industry, labour organisations and NGOs which created the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, a five-year legally binding agreement to maintain minimum safety standards in the Bangladeshi textile industry.
The following Australian retailers have so far refused to sign the accord: Best and Less, Just Jeans, Jay Jays, Peter Alexander, Portmans, Dotti and Smiggle.