KILLER FIRE AT ASIAN-OWNED WAREHOUSE
London, November 5, 2007 (IANS)

The death of four firemen at a warehouse owned by one of Britain's wealthiest Asian men - with the possibility of the death toll rising Monday - has raised questions over working conditions for migrants in Britain. Four part-time firemen were killed Friday trying to fight a blaze that swept the warehouse at Atherstone-on-Stour and reports said more bodies could be found as firemen gained access to the gutted building.

The warehouse belongs to Wealmoor Atherstone Ltd., a vegetable and exotic fruit company owned by 77-year-old Rati Dhanani, a London-based businessmen ranked 177th on the Asian rich list in Britain with an estimated wealth of 5.2 million pounds (Rs.430 million). Dhanani's company admitted the lack of a water sprinkler or misting system in the warehouse, while rescue crews who had entered the building searching for the firemen's bodies said the death toll could rise because a number of vegetable packers could have failed to escape.

The company, Europe's biggest fruit and vegetable wholesaler, which sources exotic fruits from throughout the world and its own farms in Kenya and the Gambia, is facing accusations over work conditions.

John McGhee of the Fire Brigades Union said there was growing concern about the use of migrant workers in warehouses. "The fact is that there are unscrupulous employers, allowing people to sleep in their premises and it is an issue for us. We need to know when we arrive at a premises whether there are people in there and the more accurate the information the better," he said.

But Avnish Malde, a company director, said he was unaware of any workers having been caught in the blaze. "I'm not aware of anyone staying overnight; at that time of day it would have been an end of shift so there would've been a few people there," he said

The company is said to employ many migrant labourers - among tens of thousands who toil away across Britain for very low wages usually picking or packing fruits and vegetables. There have been no breaches of employment regulation at Atherstone since Dhanani took over business in July from a company called Bomford, which had gone into administration.

However, the previous owners were thought to have been guilty of multiple breaches. The Daily Mail reported four years ago that migrant workers from Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Latvia and Bangladesh were being paid a pitiful £14 a day by Bomford for backbreaking work. The migrants were working seven days a week for as little as £100 pounds, the paper said. Many of the workers, bussed in from Coventry, Warwick and other towns at dawn, used to put in a 10-hour-day without holiday pay.

The current owners are said to employ 300 workers at the warehouse, a former Royal Air Force hangar.