Vol. 76/No. 35      October 1, 2012

Two hundred eighty-nine workers, more than half the workforce, were killed in a fire at the four-story Ali Enterprises garment factory in Karachi. At least 65 were injured from jumping out windows.

Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, is a major port as well as center of industry and commerce with a multinational population drawn from every corner of the country. “We had Biharis, Gujratis, Baloch, Sindhi, Pashtuns, Urdu-speakers, Punjabis,” one of the survivors of the fire told the New York Times.

The other fire, in the eastern city of Lahore, swept a four-story shoe factory and killed 25 workers, mostly teenagers.

Workers at Ali Enterprises, which also makes plastic utensils and candles, say plant managers locked the doors in an attempt to save the company’s stockpiles of jeans. The windows were iron grilled, reported Lahore’s Daily Times.

“Even when there is a fire they lock the doors,” Nasir Mansoor, deputy general secretary of the National Trade Union Federation, said in a phone interview from Karachi. “They figure the workers might steal something so they check them before letting them leave.”

“Almost every factory, especially garment factories, are built without proper permits from the building authority or electrical inspections, and labor inspectors don’t enforce the laws,” Mansoor said. “Every month there’s a fire and a collapse of a building. Every factory is like a time bomb.”

There are no official statistics on job injuries “because there is no government willingness to collect those figures,” Khalid Mahmood, director of the Labour Education Foundation in Lahore, told the Militant.

Ali Enterprises, like most factories, hires workers through “third party” contractors. Bosses don’t register employees in order to avoid paying social security and keep out unions, which only represent about 5 percent of garment and textile workers, Mansoor said.

The lack of employee records has made it hard to identify all the victims.

The two owners of Ali Enterprises have obtained a court order blocking their arrest on murder charges, according to Mansoor.

Thousands of workers protested outside the burned-down factory Sept. 15.

“We are demanding compensation for the families of the workers who died and compensation and free medical treatment for the wounded workers,” Mansoor said. “We are demanding that the government register all the factories” and enforce the existing laws.
 
 
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