Health and Safety Labor Watch: At least 169 workers died in July

The Health and Safety Labor Watch (ISIG) said that at least 169 workers were killed on the job in July.

The number of occupational homicides in the first seven months reached 1,014, the İSİG's monthly reports showed. At least 120 workers were killed in January, 109 were killed in February, 122 were killed in March, 129 were killed in April, 176 were killed in May, and 189 were killed in June.

In July there were at least 169 deaths in the workplace.

Among the workers who were killed in 2022 so far, 867, or 86 percent, were paid workers (workers and civil servants) and 147 were autonomous workers (shopkeepers and farmers).

Only 27, or 2.66 percent, of the killed workers were unionized, whereas 987 of them were not members of a union. The unionized workers were working in the sectors of metal, chemistry, mining, healthcare, municipality, communications, energy, transportation and security.

Sixty-eight of the killed workers were women and 946 were men. Fourteen child workers under 18 and 25 child workers between the ages of 15 and 17 were killed.

İSİG was not able to confirm the ages of 58 workers, but 148 workers were in the 18-27 age group, 483 were in the 28-50 age group, 217 were in the 51-64 age group and 69 were older than 65.

Fifty-five of the killed workers were refugees. Twenty-four were from Syria, 12 from Afghanistan, four from Uzbekistan, three from Iran, two from Turkmenistan, and one each from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Indonesia, Iraq, Kuwait, Russia, Pakistan, Serbia, Ukraine and Greece.

The highest number of deaths, 199, occurred in the sectors of agriculture and forestry.

192 workers were from the construction sector, 124 from the transport sector, 65 from the trade, office, education and cinema sectors, and 62 were from the metal sector.

The most common cause of death was traffic or shuttle accidents (220 accidents), while 189 workers were killed because of being crushed or something collapsed on them and 152 workers were killed because of falling from a height.

Workers were killed in 75 Turkish cities, as well as in 17 other countries. The highest number of deaths occurred in Istanbul (136), followed by Antalya (38), Izmir (38), Muğla (37), Mersin (35), Denizli (32) and Kocaeli (31).

Five workers were killed in Iraq, three in Northern Cyprus, two in Israel and Russia each, and one in Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, China, Dominica, Kuwait, Libya, Macedonia, Malta, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia.