Launch a committee to compensate fire victims

Labour leaders yesterday called on the government to form a committee as soon as possible to pay compensation to the victims of the fire incident at Hashem Foods Ltd in Narayanganj.

The government or the High Court may issue an order to set up the committee with representation from various stakeholders to determine the compensation amount, they said.

On Thursday, the fire incident took the lives of 52 workers and injured many. As per the labour law of Bangladesh, a deceased worker's family will get Tk 2 lakh.

"It is our moral responsibility to pay a good amount of compensation to the victims and their families," said Razequzzaman Ratan, president of the Samajtantrik Sramik Front, a labour rights group.

"Primarily, we need to form the committee and then discuss and fix the amount," he told The Daily Star.

After the Rana Plaza building collapsed in 2013, the High Court ordered the government to constitute a compensation committee to determine the compensation.

However, the context of the fire at Hashem Foods Ltd, a juice producer, is different as there is no pressure from the international community to form the committee like the garment industry came under following the Rana Plaza disaster, he said.

"We have already demanded at least Tk 20 lakh as compensation for each worker who died in the fire incident."

The voice should be raised from the local platforms as the company was selling goods in the domestic market, the labour leader said.

"We are working with our international partners on compensation for the victims of the fire so that they get a handsome amount," said Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmmed, a former executive director of the Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies.

He said the nature of deaths at the Hashem Foods Ltd fire, the Tazreen Fashions fire and the Rana Plaza building collapse was similar.

"So, the compensation payment method should be the same."

Although Bangladesh has not ratified the International Labour Organisation's Convention 121, which deals with the compensation to the victims of industrial accidents, taking into account the losses of future earnings, pains and sufferings of relatives, the victims can be paid the compensation in line with the convention, said Wajedul Islam Khan, general secretary of the Bangladesh Trade Union Kendra.