Compensation for the worker

The plight of Pakistan’s working class is clear by the fact that the families of Karachi’s Baldia Town factory fire victims have yet to have been compensated after five years of the horrible tragedy. It is astonishing that the fairly straightforward matter of how to disperse compensation to the families of the 257 workers who died in the fire in Ali Enterprises has not been resolved till now. The German retailer, KiK, agreed to transfer around $5.3 million to the International Labour Organization (ILO) in installments, which would then be transferred to the families. There are two outstanding issues. One, the families do not agree to compensation in installments, which would amount to a measly Rs2,800 per month per family. Instead, the families insist that the payments should be made as a lump sum amount. Two, the families also disagree over who will disburse the payments. They insist that the pensions for the deceased workers be paid through the Sindh High Court, instead of the Sindh Employees Social Security Institution (Sessi). They have accused Sessi of serious mismanagement based on their experiences with the body and would prefer the courts took over the process.

What seems clear is that the government wants to play no role in seeking justice for the deceased workers. The Baldia Town fire is only relevant in so far as it can be used to score political advantage, but the families of workers do not matter much in the priorities chain. Overall, the compensation amounts secured are too low in themselves, so the decision to stagger them is all the more astounding. It seems that the matter of the Baldia Town factory fire is heading to a conclusion that will not benefit workers at all. The responsibility has been shifted from factory owners to political parties, which has left the major international buyer from the factory off the hook. The issue has slowly but surely been forgotten in mainstream media. In the meanwhile, workers around the country have continued to suffer terrible fates, including at the Gadani ship-breaking yard in Karachi and Sundar Industrial Estate in Lahore. Only two weeks ago, a fire broke out at a three-storey cardboard factory in Azizabad. Nothing has been improved in terms of fire safety at industrial spaces, and workers remain as vulnerable as ever. With the compensation issue for Baldia Town workers still stuck, factory owners have nothing to fear when they are not ensuring that the right safety measures are implemented in their factories.