Tariq Al Banna :
Although five years have passed since the deadly collapse of rana Plaza, providing adequate compensation to all the victims’ and their affected families, it seems, is still far away. At the core of the matter is the public interest writ seeking court directives on amount of the compensation which is yet to be heard by the court for the last four years.
Allegations are there that the factory owners are using their influence to delay the hearing of the writ to avoid payment of a proper compensation package.
Even they are trying to sideline the recommendations of a governemnt-formed committee on the amount of compensationb.
On April 24, 2013, around 1,135 garment workers were killed, more than 2500 permanently disabled, and over 100 workers went ‘permanently’ missing inside the collapsed Rana Plaza, after the workers were forced by factory owners to enter the dilapidated factory building.
A number of the world’s top fashion brands – Spain’s Mango, Inditex and (Zara), UK’s Matalan and Primark, Italy’s Benetton, Canada’s Joe Fresh – all were using suppliers based in Rana Plaza.
To serve their interest, poor workers were lured from their ancestral villages into the death trap of the factory building called Rana Plaza that obtained permission to build a six-storey building but later extended it by three more floors.
The global brands’ unending search for the cheapest labour in the world; their unstoppable greed to make more and more profit; and, above all, their gluttony paved the way for the deadliest factory killings in industrial history. One should keep in mind that donation is not compensation. Compensation is a right while donation is just an act of charity. As different parties involved started citing different compensation amount, rights activist moved to the court.
Within a week after the collapse of Rana Plaza, Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust and Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), two human rights organisations, jointly filed a public interest writ seeking the High Court’s directives on amount of the compensation.
The court then ordered the government to form a committee ‘to determine adequate compensation for the victims’.
On January 23, 2014, the committee submitted its report to the court, proposing over Tk 14.5 lakh compensation to each of the deceased workers’ families and permanently disabled labourers.
But no hearing has taken place since 2014 on the petition, after the submission of reccomendations, although the then chief justice ordered the holding of analogous hearings on the writ.
Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) which wants the compensation amount to be fixed according to Bangladesh Labour Law of 2006, termed the proposed amount ‘impractical’.
They argued ‘such high amount would discourage investors to continue business.’
BGMEA gave note of decent to the committee, urging them to set the compensation amount at Tk 2 lakh.
The issue of compensation of more than 3,000 families appears being deliberately ignored, like the imminent probability of the collapse was, to satisfy the profit-hungry fashion brands, and protect their local suppliers.
The building had a crack and tilted a day before the collapse, but the owners forced the workers to continue working in the building. In a sense they forced the workers to be burried inside the building.
