Working people live more dangerously in Turkey than in other countries: At least 1923 people died at work in the previous year alone. In the past five years, dangerous jobs have cost more than 10,000 workers in Turkey – of which a quarter in the construction sector alone.
Nowhere is the number of “work-killings” growing so much as in the construction sector, which employs around two million people. At least 108 people were killed at work in March in Turkey. Eleven of those killed are migrants from Afghanistan, Syria and Turkmenistan.
Most of the 108 “work-killings” in March also occurred in this sector. The figures are based on a report from the Association for Job Security (İşçi Sağlığı ve İş Güvenliği, İSİG), which was released on Monday.
Four of the workers killed in the previous month are women, five others were children. Four of these children worked in agriculture, another under construction. In the first eleven months of last year alone, at least 66 children died at work. According to İSİG, it was the year with the most child laborers dead, although the governing AKP declared 2018 a “year of fighting against child labor”.
Of the people killed at work in March, only 0.92 percent were unionized, according to İSİG. 107 of the workers were not members of any union.
The most frequent “work-related murders” occurred in March in the Marmara region. In first place lies the city of Kayseri, followed by Ankara, Kocaeli, İstanbul, İzmir, Adana, Antalya, Denizli, Gaziantep and Zonguldak.