Thirty-five Yalova shipyard workers fired after killing of colleague

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Following the killing of a 19-year-old worker in the Sefine Shipyard in Yalova, northwestern Türkiye, 35 workers were fired by employers.

Their colleagues told the daily BirGün and the soL news portal that the fired workers were those who tried to prevent a company official from putting a safety belt on the dead body of the killed worker, Yasin Demirdağ.

A video released by the Limter-İş union on Sunday (August 21) showed a brawl between several workers and a man who is purportedly an occupational safety specialist for the company that Demirdağ worked for.

The worker was killed after falling from a high place in the shipyard, and the specialist was trying to put a safety belt on her in order to avoid legal responsibility, according to the union.

Such practices have been common in shipyards, the head of the union told bianet in an interview.

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However, a worker who spoke to soL said the worker already had a belt on them, but it was tied to a regular rope rather than a steel rope, which is called a "life rope."

"There should be a life rope between the deck and the warehouse. But there wasn't. It had an effect on the fall," he said, adding that the worker had fallen from about 20 meters.

Another worker who spoke to BirGün said he had witnessed the incident.

"Yasin was working near me. He had a safety belt when he fell, but some ropes were missing. In some places, ropes were broken. There was a lot of negligence in the site we worked in," he said.

"I was there when the incident happened, it happened in front of me. Most of the time, I also wouldn't use the hook on my belt. We were working at great risk."

The company reportedly fired the workers who were involved in the brawl.

Since the enactment of the Occupational Health and Safety Law in 2013, at least 288 shipyard and marine workers have been killed on the job, according to the Health and Safety Labor Watch (İSİG). At least 26 workers were killed this year. (HA/VK)