Triangle Fire Again

 

IN a  tragedy reminiscent of that which occurred in New York over 100 years ago, at least 110 people have been killed by a fire which swept a garment factory in Bangladesh. Witnesses saw desperate workers leaping to their death from upper floor windows as they tried to escape the flames.

Firefighters battled for several hours to contain the blaze, which broke out on the ground floor of the nine-storey Tazreen Fashion plant 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of the capital Dhaka late on Saturday.

The factory made clothes for international brands including the European chain C&A and the Hong Kong-based Li & Fung company.

Kamrul Hasan Khan | AFP ) reports:
"I smelt smoke and ran downstairs and found that the place was already full with black fumes," Rabiul Islam told AFP as he surveyed the gutted ruins of the building where many of his colleagues had died.

"With another worker, I broke open an exhaust fan in the second floor and jumped to the roof of a shed next to the factory," he said. "I broke my hand but survived somehow."

Bangladesh is a global centre for clothes manufacturing due to its cheap labour, with many popular brands using huge factories to produce items for export to Western markets. But work conditions are often basic and safety standards low.

Dhaka district commissioner Yusuf Harun told AFP the death toll was 110, including several workers who died while jumping from windows or the roof. About 100 people were injured.
"We laid the bodies out in the grounds of a nearby school and have now started handing them over to relatives," Harun said.

"The factory had three exits but since the fire was on the ground floor, workers could not come downstairs," he said, adding that most victims were women.

Kalpona Akter, director of the Bangladesh Centre for Workers Solidarity, said the blaze was the worst that the nation's garment industry had ever suffered.

The owner of the factory, Delwar Hossain, told AFP the cause of the fire was not yet known but he denied his premises were unsafe.
"It is a huge loss for my staff and my factory. This is the first time we have ever had a fire at one of my seven factories," he said,

A Li & Fung spokeswoman told AFP: "We are very distressed and saddened by the deaths of workers and wish to express our deepest condolences to the families of the victims."

The company is "matching the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association's financial assistance by pledging 100,000 Bangladeshi taka ($1,200) to each family of every victim," the spokeswoman added.

Thorsten Rolfes, C&A spokesman in Berlin, said the company had commissioned the factory to make 220,000 sweaters to be delivered to Brazil. "The victims and their families are in our thoughts and prayers," he said.

Tuba Group, the parent company of Tazreen Fashion, said on its website that the factory opened in 2009 and employed 1,630 workers making polo shirts, T-shirts and jackets. It also said its factories make clothes for Walmart, Carrefour and IKEA, and added that the Tazreen plant had 60 smoke detectors and more than 200 fire extinguishers.

Relatives of the workers made phone calls to those inside the factory as it burned, local residents told AFP, and one witness said firefighters were helpless as the blaze took hold.
"I came to the factory premises and found workers crying for help," Mohammad Ratan said. "I saw many jumping from windows."

A police investigation was under way and no cause had been identified, but fires as a result of short-circuits and shoddy electrical wiring are common in South Asian factories. A blaze in a Pakistan garment factory in September killed 289 workers and injured 110 more. Two of the owners are facing murder charges. According to the Clean Clothes Campaign, a Amsterdam-based textile rights group, at least 500 Bangladeshi garment workers have died since 2006 in factory fires.

"These brands have known for years that many of the factories they choose to work with are death traps," said spokeswoman Ineke Zeldenrust. "Their failure to take action amounts to criminal negligence."

Bangladesh has emerged as the world's second-largest clothes exporter with overseas garment sales topping $19 billion last year, or 80 percent of national exports.
The sector is the mainstay of the poverty-stricken country's economy, employing 40 percent of its industrial workforce.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/bangladesh-factory-fire-death-toll-soars-121-fire-043734708.html

It was on March 25, 1911, that a fire swept through the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York, killing 146 workers, mainly young Jewish and Italian immigrant women. This tragedy led to a massive movement to improve conditions and safety in the garment industry, with trade unions pressing legislators. But 101 years later the clothing trade remains the scene of huge profits and sweatshop exploitation internationally, with cheap labour hidden behind expensive designer labels, and blazes like that in Bangladesh.
 
In March this year hearing via War on Want that Amirul Haque Amin, president of the National Garment Workers Federation Union in Bangladesh, was coming to Britain to speak about the gap between sweatshop toilers and Olympic glitter, the Jewish Socialists' Group invited him and his colleagues to speak at a meeting at which we also commemorated the Triangle Sjirstwaist fire. The Bangladeshi brothers and sisters also spoke to trade unionists at a meeting in Congress House.They see the link with Western high street stores as giving an opportunity for friends here to put pressure on companies to see conditions are improved in Bangldesh.  But the tragic blaze this weekend highlights how urgent this is, and how much needs to be done,

History on the Triangle fire:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire 

http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/trianglefire/ 

Organisations working for solidarity with workers like those in Bangladesh:

http://www.labourbehindthelabel.org/ 

http://www.nosweat.org.uk/ 

http://www.waronwant.org/campaigns/love-fashion-hate-sweatshops