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Senior sewing operators earn 23 - 26 cents an hour ($11.26 - $12.66 a week).
Workweeks average 72 - 81 hours. Workers get two days off each month. They're cheated on wages. Overtime is mandatory. Complainers are fired. It's at regular pay. Half of it goes unpaid.
Physical abuse is commonplace. Supervisors curse, slap and punch female workers for sewing errors or staying in the bathroom too long.
Maternity leave is denied. So is sick leave. Workers arriving late three times for any reasons are automatically fired.
Workdays run from 8AM - 8PM. An hour for lunch is provided.
Tazreen was authorized to build a three-story factory. It built a nine-story facility. No one in government objected. Safety precautions were ignored. Few fire extinguishers were available. Small ones couldn't be contained. Major blazes assured disaster.
On November 24, fire began on Tazreen's ground floor. Upper floor workers were trapped. At least 112 died. Another 150 were injured. Containing the blaze took hours.
Fire department operations director Major Mohammad Mahbub said Tazreen's building had no escape exits.
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