Thousands of garment factory workers have protested in the capital, Dhaka, over the death of about 200 workers in a building collapse, as rescuers continued to hunt for survivors, local media have reported.

Al Jazeera’s* special correspondent, whom we are not naming for security reasons, said on Thursday that thousands of protesters took to the streets of Dhaka with sticks in their hands chanting slogans such as “we want execution of the garment factory owners”.

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association building office has been attacked, our correspondent said.

Workers have blocked a road and indulged in vandalism at some places, the Daily Star newspaper reported.

The protests come a day after a garment factory collapsed killing about 200, and there are fears the death toll might go up, even as criticism mounted of foreign firms that source cheap clothes from the country.

After visiting the disaster site, Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir, the interior minister, told reporters the building had violated construction codes and that “the culprits would be punished”.

More than 1,000 people were injured when the site housing five garment factories on the outskirts of Dhaka imploded on Wednesday, allegedly after managers ignored workers’ warnings that the building had become unstable.

Mourning for victims

Flags flew at half-mast on Thursday as the shell-shocked country declared a day of mourning for the victims of the nation’s worst factory disaster, which highlighted new safety concerns in Bangladesh’s vital garment industry.

Army Brigadier General Mohammed Siddiqul Alam Shikder said many people were still trapped in the building, which housed a number of garment factories employing hundreds of people.

Workers had said a day earlier that large cracks had developed in the structure.

A clearer picture of the rescue operation would be available by the afternoon, Shikder said.

Searchers worked through the night to get through the jumbled mess of concrete with drills or their bare hands, passing water and flashlights to those pinned inside the building.

“I gave them whistles, water, torchlights. I heard them cry. We can’t leave them behind this way,” said fire official Abul Khayer.

The local police chief, Mohammaed Asaduzzaman, said police and the government’s Capital Development Authority had filed separate cases of negligence against the building owner.

Rescuers cut holes in the jumbled mess of concrete, passing water and torches to those pinned inside the building as rescue operations illuminated by floodlights continued through the night.

The disaster came less than five months after a factory fire killed 112 people and underscored the unsafe conditions in Bangladesh’s booming garment industry, the second biggest in the world.

Large cracks

Workers said they had hesitated to go into the building on Wednesday morning because it had developed such large cracks a day earlier that it even drew the attention of local news channels.

Abdur Rahim, who worked on the fifth floor, said a factory manager gave assurances that there was no problem, so employees went inside.

“After about an hour or so, the building collapsed suddenly,” Rahim said. He next remembered regaining consciousness outside.

Only the ground floor of the Rana Plaza in the Savar district remained intact after the collapse.

Fire crews said up to 2,000 people were in the building when it collapsed.

Building collapses are common in Bangladesh. Many multi-storey blocks are built in violation of construction standards.

In 2005, dozens were killed after a multi-storey garment factory collapsed in the same area.

*Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.

A worker at a factory in Lahore surrounded by piles of sportswear: the garments are in high demand in Europe, where they are sold for exorbitant prices. Credit: Irfan Ahmed/IPS

By Irfan Ahmed
LAHORE, Feb 26 2013 (IPS)

Twenty-seven-year-old Muhammad Arif works at a steel re-rolling mill in Lahore, capital of Pakistan’s northeastern Punjab province, producing steel ingots from scrap.

He holds no letter of appointment, does not know the name of his employer, receives his weekly wages in cash from a contractor and toils daily before a furnace burning at 800-1,000 degrees Celsius without any safety equipment.

Heat and steam from the furnace often cause him severe burns, but there is no first-aid kit to be found anywhere in this factory, which employs roughly 200 workers.

Medical leave is a luxury he will likely never experience, and if he stays away from work – for whatever reason – he risks pay cuts, or even dismissal.

Arif is totally oblivious to his rights as a worker – in fact, he has no concept of labour laws at all, let alone that he is protected under them, even though Pakistan boasts over 70 pieces of legislation specifically relating to workers’ safety.

The sole breadwinner of a family of five, Arif assures IPS, “I am content. It’s better than being jobless – a state I have experienced for years.”

Widespread exploitation

Arif’s plight is quite common in this South Asian country of 150 million people: experts tell IPS that trade union activity is discouraged at all levels and across industries, leading to a widespread denial of workers’ rights.

The problem is particularly severe in the industrial sector, which produces textiles and garments, leather goods, sports equipment and sportswear, surgical instruments and cutlery for export.

To meet a growing foreign demand, cities like Lahore, Karachi, Faisalabad and Sialkot have been transformed into industrial hubs, sprouting factories that have drawn a workforce that typically earns between four and six dollars a day.

But even while export earnings increase, the country’s administrative machinery has been apathetic about working conditions in these factories, says Khalid Mahmood, director of the Labour Education Foundation (LEF) of Pakistan. He says this lack of concern over workers’ safety has dire, sometimes fatal, consequences.

Having visited Ali Enterprises – the apparel factory in Pakistan’s capital, Karachi, that went up in flames last September, killing 300 workers – he says he cannot fathom how the plant was awarded the prestigious SA8000 certification by Social Accountability International, a New York-based monitoring body tasked with assessing safety standards, just weeks before one of the worst recorded industrial disasters.

Reportedly caused by short-circuiting, the fire tore quickly through the factory, trapping workers behind locked doors.

Though the factory owners blamed the heavy death toll on the chaos that followed the blaze, experts say a lack of basic safety standards – like an absence of exit passages or adequate in-house emergency firefighting capabilities – was the primary factor behind the tragedy.

A good five months down the road, families of several victims are waiting to gain custody of their deceased loved ones: burnt beyond recognition, the bodies have not yet been identified, despite repeated DNA tests.

Accidents waiting to happen

The incident garnered considerable media attention but, as Khalid tells IPS, thousands of factories operating all over the country in similarly hazardous conditions represent equally devastating accidents waiting to happen.

He says officials of provincial labour departments, district governments and even international monitors hand out safety bills without conducting proper inspections.

Increasing production costs push factory owners to compromise on workers’ health and safety in order to remain competitive.

“Local and imported raw material such as iron and steel scrap, synthetic fibre, silk yarn, chemicals and petroleum products are becoming expensive. The Pakistan rupee is (falling) against the dollar, loan markups are burdensome, energy costs are increasing and technological upgrades are too demanding,” Khalid says. “Labour rights are compromised to offset all these burgeoning costs.”

Over the last few months, local and international entities have called on the government to implement better, more effective laws to safeguard labour rights but Dr. Sultan Pasha, acting director at the Lahore-based Centre for Improvement of Working Conditions and Environment (CIWCE) does not believe that a lack of legislation is the problem.

He tells IPS that Pakistan has no less than 70 different laws regulating standards on cleanliness, disposal of wastes and effluents, ventilation and temperature, dust and fumes, artificial humidification, overcrowding, precautions in case of fires, work on or near machinery in motion and employment of young persons to work dangerous machines.

But the laws are splintered and divided into specific areas, from the Dock Labourers Act to the Factories Act, making their implementation and enforcement a challenge, especially for bodies like CIWCE, part of the labour and human resources department of Punjab’s provincial government.

According to Pasha, factory inspections were discontinued in 2003 on the pretext of protecting the industry from “harassment” by government officials. This left regulatory obligations in the hands of the factory owners themselves, most of whom will sacrifice rights and safe working conditions for profits.

Ghulam Fatima, secretary general of the Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF) of Pakistan, tells IPS workers are seldom registered with the social security department, are underage and lack any access to first-aid, while working unusually long hours on outdated and dangerous machinery.

She claims “factory owners bribe labour department officers and do not bother to ensure safety standards”.

According to Pasha, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) recently began consultations with the government of the Sindh province to devise a comprehensive strategy for the future.

“Though there is lot more to be done, we are content that a draft law on workers’ health and safety is ready. We hope it will shortly be taken up by the parliament and passed through the required legislative process,” he adds.

International cooperation

Though many are skeptical about the possibility of change, others believe the answer lies in holding consumers of products manufactured here accountable.

Currently, the European Union (EU) is Pakistan’s largest trading partner: trade between the two countries topped eight million euros in 2011, with Pakistan enjoying a billion-euro surplus.

Trade concessions announced in the aftermath of the floods that ravaged Pakistan in 2010 and 2011 offer even more opportunities for favourable trade relations and pass some of the burden for ensuring labour standards onto European consumers.

The work of the German Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) in the aftermath of the Karachi fire is an example of successful consumer lobbying.

When news emerged that jeans carrying the label of the German company KIK had been found in the smouldering remnants of the Ali Enterprises factory, CCC exerted enourmous pressure on the corporation, eventually forcing it to cough up compensation worth a million dollars to families of the victims in Pakistan.

“It was the company’s fault not to ensure that the workers of the factory from which it imports (garments) work in safe and hygienic environments,” said Symantha Maher, head of the CCC delegation that visited Pakistan last month.

She charged that the Italian company that carried out an audit of KIK seemed “more interested” in collecting inspection fees than ensuring workers’ safety.

Maher also revealed that the CCC plans to coordinate regularly with trade unions in Pakistan and exert pressure on the Pakistani government by educating prospective importers on the working conditions in Pakistani factories.

“If the government wants to avail (itself) of preferential trade concessions and even retain its export markets, it will have to (comply) with international (and) national labour laws,” she says.

Pakistan has so far ratified 36 ILO conventions but implementation remains weak.

(END)

Over 250 workers died in the Sept. 11, 2012 fire in Ali Enterprises, a garment factory in Karachi's Baldia Town. Credit: Fahim Siddiqi/IPS

By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI, Sep 14 2012 (IPS)

The inferno that killed over 250 people at a garments factory in Karachi’s Baldia Town on Sept. 11 has raised questions over not just poor workplace safety standards in industry but massive corruption in government which leads to the flouting of building laws.

More than 500 people, including 50 women, working the evening shift were trapped inside the factory when the fire broke out at around 6:30 pm. While the cause of the blaze is not clear, rescue workers pointed out that there were no emergency escapes in the two-storey building, which had only one exit.

The fire was the worst industrial accident in the history of Pakistan. With grills on the windows and no fire exits, the factory was at particular risk due to a lethal combination of chemical dyes and cotton. It was nothing short of a death trap, with those inside having no chance to escape the toxic fumes that engulfed them.

Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city with a population of 18 million, is the country’s economic hub. The megalopolis accounts for 95 percent of Pakistan’s foreign trade and for 30 percent of national industrial output.

Pakistan relies heavily on its low-cost garment and textile industries for export earnings. According to official statistics, in 2011 the textile industry contributed 7.4 percent of Pakistan’s GDP, employed 38 percent of the manufacturing sector workforce, and accounted for 55.6 percent of total exports.

But it’s not just Karachi, and it’s not just factories. The common denominator that prevails, whether it is a flyover, bridge, road, residential or commercial venture or industrial unit, is a complete lack of adequate safety checks.

This disaster was in the offing and was not a result of an accident but of criminal negligence, if you ask Aqeel Bilgrami, one of Pakistan’s best-known architects and a former president of the Institute of Architects Pakistan (IAP). It came just hours after a similar fire in an illegally constructed shoe factory in Lahore in which 23 people died, including the owner and his son.

“Karachi is strewn with such buildings with no consideration whatsoever paid to even the minimum basic safety standards,” conceded Yasmeen Lari, an architect who has designed quite a number of multi-storey multinational buildings in Karachi.

“Many (buildings) don’t have fire escapes, their stability is questionable, and a vast majority have no provision for handicap accessibility,” Bilgrami told IPS.

But the Sept. 11 tragedy could serve as a wakeup call for the authorities and builders. According to Bilgrami, most factories can still add fire exits. And those which are structurally unstable can be strengthened by retro-fitting, although it is an expensive process. “The columns and structure can be checked for adequacy of steel and concrete quality, and can be strengthened.”

He said after the 2005 earthquake, there was much debate, and a survey was carried out to identify buildings that were in precarious condition and begin retro-fitting. But the enthusiasm soon died out, he added.

Another problem was that fire-fighters and ambulances lost precious time as they made their way through huge crowds of onlookers. The fire chief also admitted that the fire-fighters were constrained by a lack of resources, and that at one point their engines ran out of water.

Moreover, factory workers are rarely trained through fire drills. Even private schools never or rarely hold fire drills.

“Karachi lies on an active earthquake fault-line, and I shudder to even contemplate the magnitude of destruction in this city if a catastrophe like the 2005 Kashmir earthquake happened here,” Lari said.

She said that with most of the multiple-storey buildings huddled so close together, and with little adherence to the building codes, they would collapse like a giant row of dominoes within seconds.

“In addition, there are old buildings in the city centre that were originally built for one family, but are now multiple occupancy units. These sub-divided properties, owned sometimes by as many as eight families in some cases, have often blocked the escape routes and fire exits that were always built,” she said.

Today there are a number of newly-rising multi-storey housing blocks which do not have fire escapes or sprinkler systems.

“It’s not that we are not aware of the safety standards and building bylaws; they are all there in the statute books, they are just not enforced,” said Fahim Zaman, a former chief executive of the Karachi Building and Construction Authority (KBCA).

Lari said that initial drawings are approved by the KBCA if building bylaws are followed. But, she added, “There is extreme corruption in the government and they often work in connivance with builders.”

She said that over the years she has seen quality of construction deteriorating rapidly. “It’s all about making money, with little thought given to human lives.”

Bilgrami said there was a coterie of black sheep among the architect fraternity, “briefcase architects,” who are used by unscrupulous builders to get their projects approved by the various landowning and building authorities.

“The builders make their own drawings and use these architects, who though licensed are not doing well in their field, to sign them. In a month, these people get anywhere between 20 to 30 big and small drawings approved.” By contrast, said Bilgrami, he and his staff of 40 can manage a maximum of just three a month.

“We have asked the KBCA repeatedly to give us a list of projects approved monthly so we can see who the architects are, and if we find any misdemeanour, have them expelled from the Pakistan Council of Architects and Town Planners and have their licenses revoked,” said Bilgrami. But, he added: “Because they are all working in collusion, they will not even do that.”

“The engineering company behind the faulty construction of Shershah Bridge, a portion of which collapsed in 2007, was not only exonerated, but is getting handsome contracts from the government to carry out more construction work,” said Zaman.

Five people were killed and 14 others injured when the bridge collapsed.

Zaman told IPS that by law, all factories have to undergo regular inspections. But instead, the civil and defence authority inspectors are paid off well by factory owners to give their buildings a clean chit.

“I blame each and every one in the ministries of labour, industry and commerce and the building industries. As for the owners, they will all try to maximise their profits and minimise their costs,” said a fuming Zaman.

Holding the government responsible for allowing the laws and regulations to be violated, Ameer Nawab, who resigned as labour minister in Sindh just a few days before the incident, said the chief minister had stopped him from taking action against several factories for flouting safety regulations.

“We tried to explain to the chief minister that the cases were already in the court, and could not be withdrawn,” Nawab told IPS.

But he had to give in to the minister’s displeasure over the raids his ministry had carried out. “We stopped the inspections because the chief executive of the province asked us to.”

In a news report by the English daily Express Tribune, Sharafat Ali of the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research, an organisation that works for labour rights, was quoted as saying: “The chief minister issued a verbal order directing officials to suspend the inspection of factories in the province.”