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A SURVEY OF nearly two-thirds of survivors from the garment factory collapse in Rana Plaza in Bangladesh has found that many victims are still waiting on compensation.
The survey by ActionAid surveyed more than 2,297 people – both survivors and families of those who died in the eight-storey factory collapse on 24 April this year.
The survey found that 94 per cent reported they have not received any legal benefits from their employers since April, including sick pay or compensation.
Injury and death
Of those surveyed, 92 per cent of survivors have not gone back to work and of these 63 per cent said physical injury such as amputations, paralysis, severe pains in the head, leg and body have stopped them going back to work.
More than 92 per cent of survivors reported being deeply traumatised, with over half experiencing insomnia and trembling from loud sounds. Some said they were scared to walk into a building or an enclosed room.
Primark
To date only one company, Primark (trading in Ireland as Penneys), has provided financial support to survivors – giving three months’ salary of 15,000 Bangladeshi taka (€137.61) to 3,300 people.
The company provided food aid to some 1,300 families within a week of the building collapse.
In a statement today, Primark announced that it will take further “unilateral steps to deliver long-term compensation to victims, or their dependents of the disaster”.
ActionAid said they welcome today’s announcement that the brand will pay long-term compensation to the victims or their families. The Bangladesh government has given 2.2 million taka (€20, 279.56) to 777 people – around a third of the victims and their family members.
Factory workers
Farah Kabir, ActionAid’s Country Director in Bangladesh said:
It’s indefensible that for six months, multi-million dollar companies have left the victims to fend for themselves.While corporations sit on their hands, the victims of the Rana Plaza disaster are in urgent need of medical and psychological support, as well as the financial means to feed and care for their families.
ActionAid is calling on companies negotiating the compensation package to deliver a fair deal for the survivors and families of the deceased.
Long-term compensation
Primark said in their statement that the company has now set a timetable for beginning long-term compensation payments to the 550 strong workforce or their dependents of New Wave Bottoms, the supplier that was housed in Rana Plaza and which was producing clothing for Primark at the time.
Primark said that other retail brands are considering whether to adopt this scheme as an industry-wide framework for delivering compensation, but said that it was taking too long, stating that because of this they would ”press ahead with the scheme in order to deliver compensation to New Wave Bottoms workers, and their dependents, in the New Year”.
They added that they were committing to a short-term financial payment also, that this will provide some relief while long-term compensation plans are finalised. The company has already made similar short-term payments, given the delay in reaching agreement on the long-term scheme.
Brands
Primark said it is calling on other brands involved in the Rana Plaza disaster to make a contribution by paying short-term aid to some 3,000 workers or their dependents who made clothes for their labels.
To date, they said, these workers have been supported by Primark, even though the workers involved did not make clothing for the company but for other brands.
In the meantime, Primark will guarantee a further 3 months salary to the 3,600 or so victims of Rana Plaza to alleviate their immediate hardship, many of whom worked in the supply chain of other brands.
They added:
The purpose of this payment would be to alleviate hardship while these brands continue to deliberate on long-term compensation.However, if the other 27 brands who sourced in Rana Plaza fail to make this contribution, Primark is guaranteeing today that it will pay another three months wages to all the workers concerned.
ActionAid is also calling on companies to sign up to the Bangladesh Safety Accord, a five-year legally binding agreement between international labour organisations, non-governmental organisations and retailers to maintain minimum safety standards in the Bangladesh textile industry.
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Taste of his own medicine…..welldone french police
Would have preferred that he would suffer through the remainder of his life in a prison tbh rather than such a quick end.
Sounds like he killed himself jumping out the window coward to the end
Yes, Shane. Coward. As they all are. It must never be forgotten that he murdered children in cold blood. To hell with him.
Shane it was a ground floor apartment so I don’t think he jumped out the window to commit suicide!
Gearoid ye it had said it was a 5 story building and wasn’t sure what floor he was on , sure ended up he got a bullet in the skull from a police sniper .
Instead of 50 virgins in paradise, he’s, hopefully, simply stone dead.
It’s 72 virgins actually.
In fact there’s an argument about the translation of the word “virgin”, it could be “grapes”. So these nuts are looking forward to dying for a bunch of grapes :)
72 Susan Boyles…..aaagh
Inevitable end really,he was dead when he went into that house but I would’ve liked to see him rotting in a lonely dull cell for the rest of his life
About time!!
Real shame he wasn’t captured alive and put on trial. This was too quick an end for him.
Unfortunately he may be seen as a hero to extremists and may inspire other attacks.
LePen and her neo Nazi kind will use this to further ingrate tensions between France and it’s north african minority.
I’m also surprised that a lot of reports ignore the fact that his first victims were french muslim soldiers.
Headshot whilst jumping from a window..? Good amount of XP for that!
I’m actually so disappointed that it ended like this he got exactly what he wanted jumping out of a window guns blazing, to nutters like him he will be seen as a hero. Justice for the families would have been for him to see out the rest of his days in little 4/4 cell somewhere. But I guess there was very little the police could do it was almost inevitable that he was not going to be taken alive.
The commandos weren’t up to much by the sounds of it. This lunatic seemed to have the upper hand from day one. Should have brought in the SAS.
Dens do you try take the proverbial piss on everything? Seriously a therapist would have nightmares with you.
The French RIAD unit regularly train with other elite units like the SAS and GIGN, at the end of the day a nut with a fully automatic machine gun in a small apartment can get a lucky shot off. Job well done by them anyway.
Arrogance ….. You should have gone over there and shown them how to do it Denis.
Allez Les Blue.
Simple question comes to mind, where did he get the gun/s – in particular the machine gun/s?
A kalashnikov can be picked up in the suburbs of Marseille for 400 Euro
“Jumped” yeah right.
good shot!!!
Well done to the French Police. What a scumbag I have no sympathy for him.
Sarkozy said in a statement that this lunatic has been under police surveillance for a number of years. Obviously not the other day when he committed murder. Any terrorist who is considered a threat should be locked up instead of getting a police escort which doesn’t work anyway.
Allen les Blue
have your say