Discount Workers, is a Pakistani-German co-production that follows the story of the infamously tragic Baldia Factory Fire.
The film is a lengthy documentary which was aired at the One World Film Festival on September 11 to mark the 8th anniversary of the accident, where more than 250 workers lost their lives.
The festival is the largest human rights film festival in the world.The film follows Saeeda Khatoon and Abdul Aziz who lost their children in the fire. The factory workers that lost their lives were stitching clothes for German retailer KiK.
Pakistan’s Ammar Aziz and Germany’s Christopher Patz co-directed the film. Aziz is already an award winning filmmaker who garnered popularity after his film, a walnut in the tree was released.
The movie exposes a multitude of facets that led to this heart wrenching event. Including the fact before the premise was burned to the ground, the factory was awarded SA 8000 certificate which is supposed to guarantee occupational health and safety protection. Investigations alleged that a political party was involved but defying proper safety measures is also one of the leading causes of the incident.
Aziz said,
“Every time we tell someone about this film, the first question is if we have ‘exposed’ the alleged criminals belonging to a political party responsible for the fire. The point is that the Pakistani state, the German clothing brand KiK and the Italian auditing company RINA that, merely three weeks before the fire, awarded the factory with the international SA 8000 certificate which is supposed to guarantee occupational health and safety – all of them want to shift the responsibility entirely on the alleged criminals.”
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The director went on to add,
“Of course, what they did was horrendous but that’s not an excuse for you not to provide safety measures. Besides, even such a tragedy has not changed anything for thousands of other factories and informal workplaces where workers continue to lose their lives and their health deteriorate each day. The state and the European brands and audit companies must realize their criminal negligence in such cases.”
Christopher Patz, co-director of the film, shared,
“Making this film we’re able to contribute to a global movement for new laws to hold companies accountable for the human rights and environmental violations taking place in their supply chains and global operations. It’s not right that people in Pakistan die making jeans for Europeans.”
Even after this tragedy of the Baldia factory fire, nothing has changed. Hundreds and thousands of workers still work in subpar conditions which is impacting and deteriorating their health. International audit companies need to realize the criminal negligence in such cases.
