Today, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that the Federal Investigation Agency will investigate these factory fires. The irony is that the government is still not upholding its responsibility to implement laws with sufficient political will in order to ensure the protection of workers' basic rights, including safe working conditions and freedom of association. Instead, the government's response is to investigate the incident as an isolated, exceptional incident. No doubt it is heinous crime that should be investigated, with responsible persons from employers and government brought to justice; but government should also show a willingness to implement labour laws in their true spirit, and providing sufficient tools and trainings to its officials in order to adequately monitor workplaces.

The emergence of this type of small workplace has much to do the economic policies that our governments have adopted in the last few decades. The policies of neo-liberal globalization have reduced larger, safer workplaces into small factories through contractualisation and sub-contractualisation. Many large companies and multinational corporations are having their products made at these small factories which lack safe working conditions and freedom of association.

Labour Education Foundation and its member trade unions are expressing their grief and are showing solidarity with the families who lost their loved ones in these incidents. We demand that government immediately pay PKR one million (US$10,576) to the familly of each deceased worker and bring the responsible persons to justice. The government should also immediately start mapping other dangerous workplaces all across Pakistan and force employers to make working conditions safe. Government should also curb the mentality of employers who create hurdles to make it impossible for workers to form independent trade unions and to raise their voices against such dangerous working conditions.

Khalid Mahmood is the director of the Labour Education Foundation in Pakistan.