A German discount clothing retailer has agreed to pay more than $1.2 million compensation for victims of a factory fire, a union leader said Wednesday.
The blaze in September at the Ali Enterprises factory in Karachi, which made ready-to-wear garments for Western stores, killed 289 workers and injured 110 more.
German news magazine Der Spiegel reported in its online edition on Tuesday that the Kik chain, which the factory supplied with jeans, had agreed to pay a total of $500,000 compensation — less than $2,000 for every life lost. Nasir Mansoor, head of the National Trade Union Federation (NTUF), a local union for factory workers, said his organisation and the Clean Clothes Campaign, an international group striving for better conditions for garment workers, had forced Kik to up the compensation.
“We did not agree with the compensation they had announced. We warned them that we would seek for international justice if they did not share responsibility and deservedly compensated the families,” Mansoor told AFP.
“Now, Kik has agreed to pay initially 500,000 euros ($650,000). They would soon pay another half-a-million euros.”
Mansoor said NTUF was in talks to secure an even bigger payout for the workers. Kik agreed to compensate the victims and their families only after activists presented them with evidence that most of the factory’s output was destined for its Okey brand, Mansoor said.
“We saw the labels on the merchandise, checked invoices and interviewed the workers to know that at least 90 percent of the garments, the Ali Enterprises was producing, was the Okey brand for Kik,” he said.
“We contacted the company and asked for the compensation. Initially, they declined to accept the fact, but they finally gave in to the concrete evidences we had.”