Workers Pay for Boom Town with Their Lives

“These numbers indicate a very serious development and the situation needs to be addressed,” Othman Zindani, the head of the local construction workers union, told NIQASH. He had just heard of four more deaths and said that brought his total this year to 62 fatalities on the job. Many believe that official figures are far lower than the reality.

“These people are just trying to make a living,” Zindani complains. “And the government is not even following up on this. Even the general prosecutor isn’t doing anything and this is an issue that relates to thousands of people’s lives.”

There are also disabilities and other injuries to worry about. “Every day we hear news about injuries and even deaths,” says Sadar Namiq, 46, a construction site worker who’s currently employed on one of the bigger sites in Sulaymaniyah. This means long term work for him and he is pleased that he and his colleagues no longer need to queue up where the construction workers tout for jobs, to see if they have employment that day.

But on the other hand, Namiq keeps worrying about what would happen to his family if something goes wrong. “We hear about people who have lost body parts or been in accidents. And we’re never sure: Maybe the same thing will happen to us?”

Obviously there will always be accidents. But a lot of the workers’ advocacy organizations believe there are more than there should be because nobody pays attention to safety standards on the sites – neither the construction companies nor the authorities that should enforce the safety rules.