Who will pay Tazreen workers damages?

Workers bodies in Bangladesh have failed to agree on who should pay damages to workers injured at Tazreen Fashions, two years after a massive fire at the readymade garment factory.

While some say foreign buyers should pay up, others maintain factory owner Delwar Hossain and the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) should compensate the workers.

The fire at the Tuba-group-owned Tazreen Fashions at Savar’s Nishchintapur had killed 112 workers on Nov 24, 2012 and 150 were injured inside the factory, found to be locked from the outside.

Damages are claimed to have been paid to most of the families of dead but many injured workers were yet to get any money.

Several organisations held programmes on Monday to mark the passing of two years since the disastrous fire.

Flowers were laid on the victims’ graves at Jurain, workers rally held at Nishchintapur, and symbolic hunger strike in front of Dhaka’s National Press Club to press for damages.

“The major profit from this business goes to the buyers. Our workers work under factory owners but according to needs of the buyers,” Amirul Haque Amin, president of Jatiya Garment Workers Federation told bdnews24.com after the hunger strike.

“Buyers, therefore, should bear the lion’s share of the damages.”

He said Tazreen workers had made clothes for Walmart, Dickies, Delta Apparel, Anne, Sars, Disney, Kick, Karl Reiker, Piazza Italia, Edinburgh Woolen Mill, Teddy Smith, El Corte Inglés, C&A and Ling Fu.

Among them, only C&A and Ling Fu have paid damages to workers through the government.

“Owners don’t fare here much; it’s mainly a struggle between the workers and the buyers.”

But the general secretary of the Garment Sramik Federation, Kalyan Dutta disagreed.

“The factory’s owner Delwar and BGMEA are responsible for the fire,” he told bdnews24.com.

“We urge the government to seize his assets and pay damages to the workers. The BGMEA should also be pressured into paying compensation.”

Meanwhile, Garment Forum Oikya Forum leader Shahidul Islam Sobuj said both buyers and owners should be held accountable.

“We have to see who the beneficiaries are of this industry – buyers, BGMEA and the government. Three parties should pay damages. There is no question of letting any of them off.”

Some workers, meanwhile, said they did not get any compensation, and those who did said the sum was not enough for treatment and rehabilitation.

Among the 150 injured, 94 were given Tk 100,000 each, said leaders of these organisations.

‘Anju’ and ‘Laili’ injured in the fire said they were among those who received had got nothing and that their visits to the BGMEA office had been in vain.

“I went to the BGMEA office twice,” Anju told bdnews24.com. “They told me ‘your name in not in the book, first make sure your name is here’. I don’t know who to talk to in order to get my name up there.”

“I join every procession I’m called to. But I didn’t get any money,” said Laili.