The commission prepared a report after visiting Şirvan, Siirt, where 16 miners were under the collapsed mine, interviewing the miners’ families and also the president of the Chamber of Mining Engineers, Ayhan Yüksel, the governor of Siirt, Mustafa Tutulmaz, and other authorities. The report reveals the following information.
“OCCUPATIONAL MURDERS DURING THE AKP GOVERNMENT BECOME A HEAVY LOSS”
“Occupational murders are the bleeding wound of our country. 18,067 workers lost their lives in occupational murders from the year AKP came into power, 2002, until October 31, 2106. The number of workers killed in occupational accidents within the first ten months of 2016 is 596. Turkey ranks first in Europe and third in the world in occupational murders. Occupational murders in mass occur in the mining sector, and this sector is the second after the construction sector that produces occupational murders. The cause of the disaster in Şirvan is AKP’s brutal privatisation policies that transformed Turkey into a “Republic of Subcontractors”. Occupational murders occurred during the AKP government have become a heavy loss, and this loss gets heavier each passing day. The reason for this kind of a loss is that the AKP government does not consider itself responsible for the workers’ life and physical integrity.”
“4 SUBCONTRACTORS ARE WORKING WITH THE ENTERPRISE”
“The mining site in Şirvan, Siirt, in which the disaster occurred, was privatised in 2004 after Park Elektrik (Ciner Holding) acquired it from a government enterprise, ETİ. According to the information gathered from the management of the corporation, there are currently 1,080 people, including subcontractor workers, working in the corporation. There are four sub-employer businesses working in the site. In another accident occurred in the same workplace on July, 25, there were no loss of lives, while 6 truck and 2 heavy-duty vehicles were buried under the ground.”
“IT IS STATED THAT NO PRECAUTIONS WERE TAKEN AND THIS ACCIDENT HAPPENED”
“The families of miners working in the site and workers under the ground stated that cracks of 80 cm occurred after a landslip in the same site. They added that although the management was warned that these cracks posed a danger, no precautions were taken and this accident happened.”
“ONGOING INQUEST AND ADMINISTRATIVE INVESTIGATION ON THE ACCIDENT”
“There is an ongoing inquest and administrative investigation on the accident. According to the experts, a production process posing treat was in progress due to excessive profit-seeking, the landslip was triggered by the softening soil after heavy rain and by the use of explosives.
The occupational murders in Şirvan are thought to occur, as in most of the cases so far, because of the employers’ greed for profits leading to excessive and illegal subcontracting. These subcontractors risk occupational safety to make more money by cutting the production costs, increasing the production, not taking measures to prevent landslip despite the symptoms and using explosives on an excessively wet soil.”
