What is the price of 50 dead workers?
Well, according to Bangladesh Labour Act 2006, the owners of BM Container Depot Ltd is only required to pay 2 lakh taka for every worker killed in the explosion.
However, the owners of BM Depot have made a press statement declaring that they would pay 10 lac taka ‘cash/ financial assistance’ (‘নগদ সহায়তা’) to the families of those killed in the ‘accident’ (‘দুর্ঘটনা’).
Therefore the total amount of ‘financial assistance’ they are planning to pay to the families of 50 deceased workers is 5 crore taka.
One of the owners told Prothom Alo that his company is ‘ready to set an unprecedented instance of humanity’ for the ‘affected people’.
Notice how the proposed payment is referred to as ‘financial assistance’ instead of ‘compensation’ in their press statement.
This difference between these words is not just a matter of semantics, but the difference between charity and accountability. And corporations refuse to be held accountable.
For perspective, BM Depot is one of the many companies owned by Smart Group of Industries. 5 crore taka is only 0.35% of Smart Group’s self declared annual revenue of 160 million USD from RMG exports alone.
When the price of a worker’s death is limited to two lac taka in the very law that was meant to ‘ensure labour rights’, employers (who store hazardous chemicals without proper licenses putting workers lives at acute risk) can then advertise the payment of 10 lac taka as a grand act of magnanimity or ‘unprecedented instance of humanity’ - instead of having to fear unlimited liability from a class action lawsuit that would sue them for all they’re worth for committing gross corporate negligence that led to the preventable loss of life.
As long as there is no real price to pay for corporate negligence, companies will not have the incentive they need to stop acting so negligently and workers will continue dying preventable deaths.
picture source
https://www.pexels.com/photo/burning-house-in-aerial-footage-11594526/
