Migrant worker was killed while working in the Ministry of Employment! / December’s 2010 labor murders / Bosses’ violence in cooperation with the state.
On December 19, 32-year old Emad Aziz, from Egypt, slipped off the third floor of a building of the Greek Ministry of Employment and Social Security in central Athens. Emad, who was cleaning the exterior windows at the time, worked with no social insurance. He was immediately transferred to hospital where he passed away.
Aziz’s death was not considered a serious matter to be published by the General Officer of Community Management and Other Resources. Instead, the state mechanisms covered-up the case to avoid the exposing of the enormous responsibilities of “sensitive” minister L.Katseli and former minister A.Loverdos for the middle-age work conditions that they have created even within the ministry of Employment that supposedly protects work.
Their criminal complicity would actually stayed in the dark if the workers’ union MOD didn’t intervene. The general secretary of the Cleaners’ and Domestic Workers’ Union, stressed that the cleaning of the building had been commissioned to a labour recruitment office which used a loophole in the law in order to employ Emad without offering him social insurance.
Emad was father of four children.
On December 29 a gathering was held outside the Ministry of Employment after a call of the Cleaners’ and Domestic Workers’ Union
On December 7, 31 year-old worker El Sabbach Haysan was killed in the fish farming company “Calypso” in Halki island (eastern Greece). He was fatally injured when the construction machine overturned during his work in the fish farming company.
On December 9, 21 years old Iraqi worker Al Ahmad Samer, suffered electric shock and died when he touched on a truck whose cab approached the overhead wires of PPC (Public Power Corporation) in Athens-Lavrion and Thorikos avenue.
On December 11, a Pakistani worker was found dead and four others were in an unconscious state in the warehouse that they lived in Agion Apostolon Vion village in Laconia (Peloponnese). According to the authorities, the death and the four others’ situation came after lung poisoning due to fumes caused by wood that had been lit in a metal barrel to keep warm. Read more about the living conditions of Pakistani workers in Lakonia, here
The recorded labor murders in 2010 were more than 75.
Some more indicative elements for December 2010, of the bosses and the way they deal with the workers that claim their rights. The outbreaks of violence on behalf of the bosses have been increased since the new measures of the government and the IMF were implemented.
On December 22, a young trade unionist and a migrant worker in Nea Ionia were brutally attacked by a henchmen gang that is related to an artisan industry owner in Athens. Stelios Michaelides and the immigrant, that was employed uninsured in the artisan industry and the owner owed him money, after pressure managed to make an appointment to get the money. In the appointment however, instead of the owner of the business, a gang of 10 henchmen appeared and attacked and beaten strongly both. The immigrant was able to escape, while the young man was transferred to the hospital, covered in blood, to give him fist aid. The advocate of the young man, Kostas Papadakis, who had undertaken the case of Konstantina Kouneva submitted complaints.
On December 24 in Drama, a young woman working in the accounts department of a company tried to demand the Christmas gift and the money that she hadn’t taken for months. Instead of that, she was beaten strongly from the “slaver”, that was hitting her head on the office. The woman decided to make an indictment but she didn’t succeed because the cops of the local police station were trying to persuade her to reconcile herself with him!!! Eventually, she made the indictment the other day, while the boss also answered with another indictment. The worker had notified the Labour Center and the Labour Inspectorate before the incident but no one had been concerned to deal with her.
see also: //en-contrainfo.espiv.net/2010/10/28/they-call-it-accident-we-call-it-murder/