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Istanbul Health and Safety (HESA) Labor Watch

The weekly e-bulletin of the Istanbul Health and Safety (HESA) Labor Watch, FIRE TOWER, reporting mainly about the tragic consequences of the earthquake in the southeast of Turkey, the province of VAN.

Once more it has become clear that not the earthquake but the buildings kill people. The short-term profit-oriented building industry prevalent in the peripheral provinces of Turkey remains mostly outside public control and obeys ‘petit market’ rules. The earthquake also stroke to death over 50 primary and secondary school teachers that had waited for such a long time for a post and had been recently appointed to Van. We express our condolences for all the victims of the earthquake. All consitutuing institutions and persons of this committee participate in the joint solidarity actions: The concern for public health is not only bound to working places but also to places of dwelling. 

Besides this extraordinary tragic event we had to cover in our weekly bulletin the ‘ordinary/every day’ occupational accidents. The highlight of this week’s bulletin were the accidents that occur when going to and coming from work, i.e. on the road to work. According to a recent OECD study the worker from Turkey spends on average 90 minutes on the ‘road to and from work’ which is a much above the OECD average. 

Another highlight of the week is the ‘slow death’ of dental technicians because of slicosis, an illness that had not been diagnosed before in this professinal group. The Istanbul HESA Labor Watch puts consistently forward the existence of this illness in the visual, audio- and written media. Two dental technicians, aged 19 and 24 died this summer because of slicosis having worked on average five years under unacceptable working conditions in informal dental workshops. 

The e-bulletin offers a short summary of developments in each sector and an overview of the month. It is only based on press reviews.  Regular english info under construction at webpage www.guvenlicalisma.org

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