DHAKA: Two years after Rana Plaza collapse in Savar, outskirts of Dhaka that killed more than 1,100 people and injured about 2,500, the victims' families filed a lawsuit in US federal court in Washington Friday against Wal-Mart Stores Inc and other U.S.-based companies that sourced out their products from the Rana factory.

The plaintiffs claim that the retailers knew “that Bangladesh factories had an extremely poor record of workplace safety standards and industrial building standards, including garment factories.”

The Rana Plaza, a factory where cheap clothing was produced for big Western companies, was reduced to slabs of concrete not because of an earthquake or a terror attack, but due to poor construction and lack of oversight.

Therefore, many rights groups believe that the companies that used the factory for their supplies were responsible for the tragedy. The plaintiffs allege that the Bangladeshi government and the global retail companies that did business in the factory were both responsible for the collapse of the building.

They say that the companies new that poor conditions of the building yet failed to ensure the safety of the employees by demanding better oversight. The government, on the other hand, failed to require employers to abide by safety regulations.

The Rana Plaza Donors Trust Fund was put together weeks after the collapse of the factory administrated by the International Labor Organization, activists, families of victims, several Bangladeshi officials and other campaigners.

It demanded that the companies connected to the factory voluntarily pay compensation to the victims' families. At an Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) meeting in June 2014, ministers from Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the U.K. signed a statement recommending that “companies that sourced in Rana Plaza donate generously to the Trust Fund,” and while they did not specify any amount, they said the figure should be “appropriate.”

However, campaigners say that many companies while claiming that they would pay have not yet provided any money. “Companies have either made donations smaller than the amount required, or have failed to make any contribution at all,” the OECD’s Trade Union Advisory Committee stated in a recent briefing.

On Friday, many workers and activists took to the streets to mark the second anniversary of the tragedy and demand that the government, as well as the international companies, fulfill their duty in ensuring the safety of the workers and in compensating the victims’ families.

Source: teleSURtv.net/English

BDST: 1756 HRS, APR 26, 2015
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