The Hadash faction of the Histadrut Labor Federation called on Tuesday, September 13, for a national commission of inquiry into the collapse of a parking garage being constructed in Tel Aviv in which six workers were killed and at least 23 others were injured.
The workers killed in the collapse of the Ramat HaHayal parking garage on Monday, September 5 reflect the social makeup of the mass of construction workers in Israel in recent years – Palestinians from the territories, Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, immigrants from the former Soviet Union and migrant workers. “This incident, though it’s larger in scale than any one construction accident in recent years, is no exception,” said Suhil Diab, chairman of the Histadrut’s Hadash faction.
Diab said that accidents and hazards are commonplace at construction sites, and commented that it’s “miraculous” that such catastrophic incidents were not more common. “It was only a matter of time before a disaster of this magnitude would occur,” he said.
Poor regulation and lack of enforcement are to blame, said Diab. He also accused the far-right government and construction companies of being lax in the issue of worker safety, at least in part, because so many of Israel’s construction workers are Palestinian or foreign workers. Without a proper response, he said, a strike in the construction industry would be in order.
In the past week the Communist Party of Israel (CPI) and the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash) organized vigils around the country to protest against the lawlessness in the construction sector and called for a governmental commission of inquiry to examine the failures in the industry as the number of victims rises.
Related:
- In Pall of Gov’t Apathy, Spate of Construction Accidents Continues
- Victims of the Market: For Contractors, Lives of Construction Workers Have Little Value
- 34 Construction Workers Died in Workplace Accidents Last Year: Hadash Activists to Demonstrate in front of the Ministry of Economy
- Right-Wing Coalition Indifferent to Construction Accidents
- Work-Related Deaths in Israel — Twice as High as EU Average