A European campaign group has called upon global apparel brands including H&M to compensate families of Aswad fire victims like those of Tazreen factory fire and Rana Plaza building collapse. The Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) has also requested brands to support a more permanent solution for the provision of compensation, by supporting a “bridging solution,” facilitated by the ILO. This will help bring Bangladesh closer to a national level employment injury scheme that will protect all workers in case the worst happens. Compensation offered by the factory owner fell far below that received by victims of earlier disasters including the Tazreen factory fire and the Rana Plaza collapse, the campaign group said in a statement. The Aswad fire, which took place four years back, has always been overshadowed by the larger factory incidents that preceded it, such as the Rana Plaza collapse, which killed 1,134 workers, the group said adding while justifiably most efforts to ensure compensation went to these larger tragedies, the plight of the Aswad families, which is no less important, has been “largely ignored.” Happening six months after the deadly Rana Plaza collapse, this tragedy never received much attention, and four years on, the families and survivors still remain without full and fair compensation, it noted. It is the shared responsibility of the government, the factory owners and the brands to ensure that those injured or left behind after a factory incident, such as the Aswad fire, have access to remedy and are properly compensated however great or small the number of victims, the rights group said. Regarding a national level employment injury scheme to protect all workers, the group said, “We are asking for Aswad to be the pilot case for such a scheme, which would calculate and distribute the payments contributed by international buyers, based on international standards laid down in the ILO Convention 121.” The same system could also be used to compensation victims of more recent tragedies, including the fires at the Tampaco factory in 2016 and the Multifabs and Ideal Mills factories earlier this year, it added. “The families affected by the Aswad fire have been waiting for too long already for compensation,” Thiruvalluvar Yovel of the CCC said in the statement. Yovel added four years since the fire, it is high time that these brands that made profits on the materials produced at Aswad take the responsibility for these workers in their supply chain. “Money will not bring their loved ones or health back, but might at least alleviate the dire situation many of them are in since the fire,” Yovel said. All families left behind after workplace incidents deserve to be properly compensated, the statement said, adding the four-year wait of the Aswad family is “a heart-breaking reminder of that.” The group will continue to demand that brands take the responsibility for ending their plight immediately.
