Gaddani is one of the largest Ship Breaking
Yards in the World. Located near the industrial city of Hub in Balochistan,
bordering Karachi, it supplies twenty five percent of the steel demand of the
country.
On Tuesday, 1 November, at around 9.30 in the
morning, a blast occurred in an oil tanker at the Gaddani yard resulting in a
fire. The fire, rapidly engulfed the whole ship. The more than two hundred
workers who were working on the ship were caught in the fire. Some tried to
save their lives by jumping in the sea while others ran franticly. So far 21
dead bodies have been recovered, while 70 people have been injured. 15 of these
are in a critical condition with hundred percent burns.
Eyewitnesses have told the comrades of Worker
Nama that more than 150 workers were trapped inside the ship and couldn't get
out. The fire on the ship was out of control for three days and was only
extinguished on the fourth day. However, the rescue operations have not been
able to start yet, due to heat emanating from the ship.
Workers in Gaddani have been working in
conditions similar to slavery for decades. They owners treat them like insects.
When this Japanese Oil tanker was brought to the yard the cutting of the tanker
started without completing the cleaning process of the ship. While the workers
were cleaning oil in the 40 to 50 feet deep tankers, the gas based cutting
process started at the top floor. A spark from this process somehow penetrated
the tank and the whole oil tanker burst into flames.The fire then lit the gas
cylinders which were being used for cutting. The blasts from these were
throwing the workers into the air. The explosion was so huge, that the roofs
and windows of nearby buildings were broken. The up to two inches thick steel
walls of the ship couldn't withstand the blast and big parts of the ship were
flying into the air.
Many bodies were floating in the sea after desperate workers, having already
caught fire, had to jump out of the ship. It was a horrible scene with dozens
of workers on fire walking around with no first aid equipment to treat them.
Many casualties could have been prevented just by the provision of first aid.
This clearly exposes the safety conditions and implementation of labor laws at
the yard.
The callous response of the government
authorities have also been seen as usual. The government and its crony media
are under reporting the deaths, to avoid a public outrage. Media outlets have
reported 17 deaths and 50 injured while claiming that hundreds of workers are
missing. They do not dare to tell the public that the bodies of these
"missing" workers will never be found - they have been turned into
ashes by the fire. No government department has got the record of workers
working inside the ship. In fact, the authorities have not disclosed the
records of the company which owned the ship as it would expose their crimes. A
minister of the Balochistan government remarked in the Assembly that the
government has no authority over this area where ship owners rule.
The customs authorities have denied clearing
any such ship and have said that it might be an Indian conspiracy of sending an
oil tanker to invade Pakistan. Every department is putting the blame on another
to save its own skin.
According to a report on BBC Urdu Federal
Minister for Ports and Shipping Hasil Bizinjo, who is also leader of a Baloch
nationalist party, said that “this area is under the Balochistan Development
Authority (BDA), so I am not responsible for this.” However, Chairman of BDA
Shoaib Gola shifted the blame again, saying that a No Objection Certificate
from the Environment department is required before starting the cutting of the
ship. The Director General of Environment said that they had not issued any NOC
for this Ship. The chairman of the Ship owners Association, Dewan Rizwan
Farooq, said that there was no oil on the ship. While the Deputy Commissioner
of the area said that the ship had 11,000 ton of refined oil while 2,000 ton of
crude oil. The arrested contractor of the ship Farooq Bengali says that there
were around 85 people working on the ship which, is far less than the actual
number. The title of this BBC report says that "responsible for this
incident and number of workers at work can't be established".
The number of "missing" workers can
only be established by the complaints of their relatives who came there to
search their dear ones, but who couldn't find them. In fact the majority of
workers at Gaddani are brought in from distant and remote parts of the country
after paying $200-300 to their family. These families are often indebted to
local landowners or the like and this "huge" amount in one
installment helps them to reduce their misery. These workers are then bound to
their owners for the whole season. So families of many "missing"
workers don't even know what has happened to their fathers, brothers or sons.
The wages for the 20,000 strong workforce here in Gaddani are miserable.
Unskilled cleaning workers are paid $4 or $5 per day, working 12 or more hours
per day. Skilled workers like cutters received around $10, for 12 or more hours
per day. These are much less than the miserable
government defined minimum wage levels. Most of these workers live in
wooden makeshift huts near the yard with 8 or 10 workers at a time are packed
into small rooms. No labor laws or safety standards are observed and the
workers are working with their bare hands, bare footed and with loosely fitted
clothes. The workers have to work in damp tanks of up to 50 feet in depth
without any monitoring or oxygen surrounded by hazardous gases. Many faint
while working and lay on the ground unconscious, no one helps them until they
get up with their own efforts and restart work. There is no light inside the
tanks and have to continue working when it gets dark. Only supervisors have
small lights with which they can check whether the workers are working or
sitting idle. Deaths at the workplace are very common and have become a
routine. The conditions are so horrible that when a worker is seriously
injured, his colleagues demand death grants from the owners rather than asking
for health facility. There is no proper health facility nearby and the victims
of this incident were sent to Civil Hospital in Karachi tens of miles away. Not
a single court case had ever been registered against any of the owners or
contractors, before this incident.
For some years some workers have been trying
to organize themselves around the Mazdoor Union. Bashir Mehmoodani, the leader
of this union, speaking to Worker Nama, said that a yellow union backed by the
contractors has prevented workers from joining them his union. He said that
when he registered his union in 2009 he and his fellow workers were severely
beaten by the local police in a protest. Since then they have been facing the
wrath of the labor department and the police. Just two days before the incident
a protest was organized by his union and the National Trade Union Federation
(NTUF) for the implementation of safety, but no one took notice.
After this incident there was fury and rage amongst
the workers. The comrades of the IMT in coordination with the Mazdoor Union and
NTUF have organized a protest against the authorities. A large number of the
workers have joined this protest and have raised slogans against the draconian
policies of the state and ship owners. After this protest, a case was
registered against the yard owner, Abdul Ghafoor Kamboh, and his contractor.
Also, fire brigades and ambulances suddenly started arriving at the scene in
big numbers. But all these fire brigades were not able to extinguish the fire
as they lacked necessary equipment to handle the situation. A helicopter was
also brought to throw extinguishing chemicals on the fire, but due to heavy
smoke it couldn't do much.
Four years ago a similar fire happened in a
factory in Baldia Town, Karachi in which nearly three hundred workers were
burned to death and many more injured. The actual number of the casualties
was also under reported then. But no one
has been punished for the atrocity. Due to the policies of the government,
these incidents have become a routine. Last year roof of a factory in Sundar in
Lahore collapsed killing a large number of workers. Workers had been
complaining about the dilapidated condition of the building, they were still
forced to work there while a new floor was built on that roof.
After the most recent incident, many calls are coming from the authorities to
investigate the causes of the incident, but this is just for show - nothing
will be solved. The chief Minister of Balochistan, who visited Gaddani today
was responsible for baton charging a protest of Young doctors in Quetta a few
months ago. In that incident, one doctor nearly lost his eyesight. The Prime
Minister of Pakistan is also the most famous steel industrialist of the
country. His industries are notorious for throwing workers into steel melting
furnaces if they demand pay raises or any other improvement of working
condition. In such conditions what can be expected from these rulers? Nawaz
Sharif in his previous tenure as Prime Minister banned labor inspection of
industries in the whole country. Similar policies have been pursued by other
governments whether military or "democratic". The ILO and other
international organizations have ignored the draconian work conditions in the
country. Now the government, on the dictates of IMF, is privatizing other
sectors which will mean sending those public sector workers with relatively
better working conditions towards the same conditions faced by workers of
Gaddani.
The only way forward is to organize the
workers of all sectors in Pakistan and the whole world to overthrow Capitalism
which is the root cause of all these problems. The comrades of IMT are
organizing a public meeting on Sunday near Gaddani to commemorate the 99th
anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. This meeting will not only discuss the
reasons of this incident, but also the strategy to cope with this situation,
the treatment of the victims and the compensation for their families. The Red Workers Front will also organize
protests on this incident in other cities across the country. Most importantly
we will continue the struggle for workers’ rights. The only revenge for this
mass murder, is a socialist revolution in this country and beyond.
Source:
Marxist.
04 November 2016
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