A total of 146 people died in workplace accidents in Turkey in July, according to a monthly report by the Health and Safety Labor Watch (İSİG), the Bianet news website reported.
The report stated that the most common causes of work-related deaths in July were traffic accidents, falling from heights, being crushed under heavy equipment and explosion or fire.
According to the report, people who died in work-related accidents last month included 10 minors, 13 women and eight migrants.
Turkey recorded 1,155 worker deaths in the first six months of this year.
According to Ömer Fethi Gürer, a deputy from the Republican People’s Party (CHP), seasonal farm laborers have increasingly been the victims of fatal work-related accidents. Forty laborers died and at least 108 were injured in traffic accidents in the first half of this year, Gürer said.
People have been suffering from lax work safety standards for decades in Turkey, where workplace accidents are nearly a daily occurrence. In the worst work-related accident in the country’s history, 301 miners lost their lives in an explosion in Manisa’s Soma district in May 2014.
According to a report released in November by Sezgin Tanrıkulu, human rights activist and CHP lawmaker, at least 25,716 work-related fatalities have taken place in Turkey since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002.
