Pakistan Garment Unions and Labour groups Urge Brands to support a Pakistan Accord on Fire and Building Safety

[This was first published by the Pakistan Labour Education Foundation on 7 October 2018] Last month, we commemorated the sixth anniversary of the Baldia Factory fire. Since the date of the tragedy we, Pakistani unions and labor groups, together with our international allies, have been working towards fixing responsibly to all parties: brands, government, suppliers and auditing companies. Our first priority was to ensure that the victims and their families received financial compensation for their loss, as per international standards. While this objective has now been achieved, the safety crisis, however, remains. We continue to work together to ensure that no such tragedy happens again. We continue to hear incidents of workers being killed or injured in factories, demonstrating a continued lack of implementation of the safety law as well as a lack of responsibility from the brands. On the 12th and 13th of September, local union and labor groups, met to discuss next steps on how to make sure that factory buildings would become safe and agreed to the following.