While the workers in the construction of a massive new airport in İstanbul are forced to work overtime to complete the construction of a landing field for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's birthday, occupational murders increase due to lack of safety measures.
One more worker died by another occupational murder in the construction side of İstanbul’s third airport. Orhan Bingöl, who started to work in the site only two days ago before his death, died in fall on January 22. According to the worker's brother, Metin Bingöl, Orhan fell and died because there was no safety rail.
The worker's brother, who is also working in the same construction site, stated that the managers let them work without any safety measures. think the real deaths are much more than what the official number says, because there is a high lelev od negligence regarding workers' safety.
Orhan, according to the brother, was trapped by an invisible empty space covered by a door. Since he did not know that the door opens to an emptiness, he fell down. The brother says "he also escaped from this dangerous situation by chance and he informed the managers about this danger". However, he states, nobody has done anything about this risky place. The brother also states that they waited for the ambulance for about 40 minutes.
Although the workers were told that they would be given training for work safety, their manager did not allow them to take this required training and let them work without any safety measures.
The construction site of the third airport has been known by the high number of occupational murders as well as its damages to nature. The construction site that started to be built in June 2014 has been the site of occupational murders whose numbers are tried to be hidden from the public. As the workers stated, according to the sources, it is hard to track down the actual number of murders since there are too many subcontracting firms in the site.
Despite the already risky and neglected working conditions, the construction has recently been tried to be accelerated because it is planned that President Erdoğan will be the first user of the airport and one of the landing fields will be used in his birthday, February 26. The workers in the construction site state that they are forced to work overtime, even in their meal breaks, because of this planned event.
