Bangladesh factory owners face fire charges

Bangladesh factory owners face fire charges
Couple who ran garment factory where blaze killed 112 denied bail after presenting themselves to authorities.

Two owners of a garments factory in Bangladesh where a fire killed 112 workers have turned themselves in to face homicide charges, a prosecutor said.

Anwarul Kabir said on Sunday Delwar Hossain and his wife Mahmuda Akter, owners of Tazreen Fashion, had pleaded for bail after surrendering.

The incident was Bangladesh’s worst factory fire.

"The court sent them to jail after rejecting their bail petition," Kabir said.

The couple are among six people wanted in connection with the November 24, 2012, blaze on the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka.

An investigation found that when the fire broke out, managers and security guards told workers it was part of a regular drill and it was too late for many to escape.

Workers found the gates locked from outside as the fire engulfed the sprawling building, according to the investigation.

Protests outside court

Witnesses said several hundred people gathered at the court and chanted for the pair to be given the death penalty. If convicted, they could face life in prison.

In all, 13 people were charged in connection with the disaster, a rare step in a country where critics complain that powerful garment industry bosses often go unpunished for factory accidents.

The charges included breaching construction rules, such as the failure to provide two emergency exits.

Bangladesh is the world's second-largest textile exporter after China. In December it raised wages for workers and them to form trade unions in July after a string of factory accidents.

The $22bn export industry, which supplies many Western brands, came under scrutiny when a building housing factories collapsed in April, five months after the Tazreen fire, killing more than 1,130 people.

The owner of that building that collapsed, Mohammed Sohel Rana, was arrested after a four-day hunt as he appeared to be trying to flee across the border to India.

After the Tazreen blaze, both Wal-Mart Stores inc WMT.N and Sears Holdings Inc said that goods were being manufactured for them at the factory though both had denied it authorisation as a supplier.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2014/02/bangladesh-factory-owners-face-fire-charges-2014299423721780.html

The price Bangladeshi workers pay to produce cheap goods for the West.

Hopefully this will have some impact on the industry as a whole and it won't just be a case of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss." If nothing else, that good old free market reputation system will hopefully spur factory owners to take some safety precautions.

A lot of my beliefs about what role the government should play and about the nature of capitalism stem from stories just like this one, which we here about far too often, all over the world. Holy crap, my sleeping meds are trying to shut my eyes as I very slowly type this out ... goodnight everyone!

if we were more bothered about these people we may consider their plight before we buy branded clothes and accessories at ridiculous prices why the workers live in worst then poverty...

heavenly father wrote:if we were more bothered about these people we may consider their plight before we buy branded clothes and accessories at ridiculous prices why the  workers live in worst then poverty...

I'd love to vote with my dollars, and I try to -- but try finding clothes made in ethical factories, it's nigh-on impossible.