Almost 300 Pakistani workers were killed in fire at a clothing factory in Karachi on Sept. 12 shortly after a corporate-funded monitoring group certified that the factory, Ali Enterprises, met safety standards. It was the worst fire disaster in Pakistan’s history. Locked doors and barred windows trapped the victims in the inferno, leaving many bodies so badly burned they may never be identified.
The fire burned for 15 hours, killing at least 289 workers before being brought under control. The factory had received a highly coveted SA8000 rating from Social Accountability International in August, indicating that it met standards concerning worker safety, child labor, minimum wages and other issues. The audit was carried out by two inspectors working for RINA Group, an Italian company that inspected factories on behalf of SAI.
The death toll stands almost twice as high as that of the infamous 1911 Triangle shirtwaist factory in New York City. It exposes the cynicism behind efforts to reassure consumers that their clothes are made under safe, socially responsible conditions. SAI, a controversial New York-based nonprofit organization largely funded by industry, was created 15 years ago in response to growing public concern about factory working conditions around the world. It relies on 21 affiliate organizations around the world to do most of the factory inspections to receive its seal of approval.
Scott Nova, executive director of the monitoring group Worker Rights Consortium, was quoted in The New York Times, “This demonstrates, more clearly than ever, that corporate-funded monitoring systems like S.A.I. cannot and will not protect workers.”
A spokesperson for SAI acknowledged that managers at Ali Enterprises had been told of the inspection in advance. Some workers managed to survive but were seriously injured as they jumped from the building to escape the fire. Survivors said they were also informed about the audit, coached to lie to inspectors, and told they would be fired if they spoke about unsafe conditions.
The fire in Karachi was not the only disaster in Pakistan at that time. Earlier in the day, 25 workers in a shoe factory died in a fire in the city of Lahore in eastern Pakistan.
