Every few months since May 2004, we have received statements from the government about how concerned it is about the increasing numbers of work-related accidents.
From the statistics officials generously quote us at the same time, we know that circa 8,500 accidents occurred in the workplace in Cyprus between 2004 and 2006 (i.e. about eight a day). Forty-five of these accidents were fatal – 14 in 2004, 13 in 2005, and 18 in 2006.
And this year, until last week, 16 people were killed while working. Out of these, 11 or 70 per cent were foreigners, and at least one third of them were working illegally.
This high death toll among foreigners working in Cyprus is mainly because most workers in higher-risk jobs, such as on construction sites, are non-Cypriots, with major language and communication problems. Or so an anonymous – why anonymous? Was it such a dangerous statement? – labour inspector at the labour ministry told the paper last week. Many are hired on the cheap and are either not informed of essential safety procedures or simply cannot understand them.
“The labour ministry is extremely concerned and anxious at the unprecedented – for Cypriot standards – rate by which the latest work deaths have come about,” Labour Minister Antonis Vassiliou said last May after a particularly black 16 days during which five people died. However, he added, the figures were not alarming when compared to European statistics. “We are not panicking because we are not above the average figures for the European Union.”
I didn’t manage to find specific data from the European Union, but I did find statistics from the European Agency for Safety and Health, according to which in the EU around 1,300 construction workers are killed each year. This is equivalent to 13 employees out of every 100,000. So how many construction workers in Cyprus do we have to be able to relate to these figures? But I came across figures from the Federal Bureau of Labour Statistics stating that 43 people died last year while working on construction sites in New York. Forty-three deaths in this 13-million metropolis, compared to 18 deaths in the country with about 700,000 citizens.
Explaining reasons behind this death toll (up 87 per cent from 2005), American safety experts point to the city’s unprecedented building boom and also to the fact that the city saw a big influx of immigrants at the same time who (just like in Cyprus) didn’t speak English and therefore couldn’t comprehend safety warnings.
But Oscar Paredes, executive director of the Latin American Workers Project (a review of federal data from 1997 to 2006 shows that in this period there was a more than 260 per cent increase in construction deaths in the city involving Hispanics), says the language barrier wasn’t the only cause for some workers ignoring safety precautions. Sometimes, he says, it happens because they are apathetic, but often it is because they are afraid to lose their jobs if they refuse to perform a dangerous task.
I have gone through some of the major fatal accidents in the construction industry in Cyprus since 2004, and found many similar cases that had nothing to do with communication problems, and everything to do with the employee’s need for work and/or the employer’s negligence. As a matter of fact, in many cases employers were arrested, at least temporarily, and accused of placing their employees in unsafe working conditions.
Here are some examples. In September 2004, two Indian men were crushed to death when a four-flight cement staircase with no support beams in a newly constructed office building in Nicosia collapsed on them. The later report determined that its collapse was due to efforts by the builders to keep costs as low as possible.
In January 2005 a political refugee from Iran fell off nine-metre scaffolding at a building site in Limassol and was killed on impact. Reason? No protective measures on the site. In July 2006, 46-year-old Hassan Birol was working on the air shaft of an apartment complex when he lost his balance and plunged 12 metres to his death in Limassol. Again, no scaffolding or protective measures were in place at the site. In April 2007, two construction workers (no nationality given) died after being buried alive in a six-metre-deep hole they were digging on the grounds of the Aglandja Gymnasium. According to various official reports, the gymnasium should have never been built in this area in the first place because there was a basic problem with the terrain.
In July 2007, Romanian Tecar Vlad Andrei fell nine metres to his death from the third floor of a building being built on Parnasos Street in Strovolos. Again, no necessarysafety measures were in place.
However, what I haven’t managed to find was one single story in which a family of a foreign national who lost life on an unsafe construction site has been awarded any compensation. Does it mean that such stories don’t exist or they just don’t get published? I have no idea. But I do wonder about the Syrian man who lost his life last week, and what will happen to his five orphaned children.
??
??
??
??
