They Use Workers Instead Of Sandbags To Test Lifeboats: 3 Dead, 1 Injured

A lifeboat with workers fell into the sea in Tuzla shipyard, three died and thirteen injured according to the initial reports.

The sixteen workers were in the lifeboat to help test it, instead of sand bags or any other means.

Emrah Varol, Ramazan Aygün and Ramazan Çetinkaya were killed in the lifeboat test.

According to Kamber Saygılı from the The Port, Shipyard, Ship Construction and Repair Workers Trade Union (Limter-İş), who was interviewed by bianet:

“They were testing a newly produced lifeboat, but they had sixteen workers in the lifeboat instead of sandbags. In the process the lifeboat turns over and falls into the sea.”

“Death of the workers is not a coincidence, but their still being alive is.”

 Saygılı continues about the accident:

“Here the employers attitude is ‘I am the state, I rule, I am everything’. Therefore, workers die in the dockyards that are in the middle of one of the largest cities in the world and the state just watches this. The employer gets his strength from the government. This is why they are so reckless.”

“On the other hand, they force the families of those workers who die shut their mouths by paying them. So far, there has not been a single employer punished for these deaths. Should we say it is a coincidence if a few of our friends die in a blast next week? None of the deaths in Tuzla shipyards is coincidence, staying alive in these shipyards is coincidence.” 

Saygılı says the new regulations do not help, since it is difficult to enforce the regulations where not even the laws are enforced. He repeats his call to form an independent commission, although the Prime Minister does not even consider LİMTER-İş as one of the sides of the problem.

In Tuzla shipyards eighteen workers have died in eight months. Overall 104 workers have died in Turkish shipyards. (BÇ/EZÖ/TB)