Insecurity in Workshops; '90 Workers' Died in East Azerbaijan in 11 Months

A senior government official in East Azerbaijan has reported that '90 workers' died due to workplace accidents in the '11 months of the current year', indicating a '29 percent' increase compared to last year. According to the state news agency 'IRNA', Mehrdad Setareh, the director of forensic medicine in East Azerbaijan, stated that these 90 individuals were 'men', whereas the number for the same period last year was '70'. This senior government official claimed that East Azerbaijan ranks 'eighth' in terms of the frequency of 'work-related fatalities in 1401' and 'sixteenth' per 100,000 population. The government-affiliated news agency 'Tasnim' reported in Esfand 1401, citing Ali-Hossein Ra'iti-Fard, the Deputy for Labor Relations at the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare, that 'the statistics of workplace accidents in Iran are lower than the global average.' However, according to a report from July by the news agency 'ILNA' and quoting Ehsan Sohrabi, a former labor member of the Supreme Council for Technical Safety, the rate of workplace accidents and fatalities in Iran is 'much higher' than global standards and similar data from developed and industrial countries, evidenced by 'the death of more than 5 workers every day.' Mehrdad Setareh announced that '52 percent' of workplace fatalities this year were due to 'falls from heights', with '20 percent' from collisions with hard objects, '13 percent' from electrocution, '6 percent' from burns, '5 percent' from drowning, and '4 percent' from asphyxiation. According to him, the city of Tabriz ranks first with '50 deaths', followed by Marand with eight and Shabestar with five. The lack of up-to-date and necessary training, absence of precise and periodic government oversight, along with the prohibition of independent labor unions and syndicates have exacerbated the occurrence of fatal accidents in workplaces in Iran. Continuous fatal workplace incidents in Iran include the death of a welder and a poultry farmer, injuries to 7 workers in an explosion at a metal industry factory in Saveh, a fire in a cosmetics factory leaving over 50 injured, and more than a thousand workers killed in workplace incidents over six months. The lack of safety continues to claim workers' lives; a worker died from falling from a building. Cheap lives in Iran! A union official stated: widespread deaths of construction workers due to bone and lung problems.