Workers Pay for Boom Town with Their Lives

“There are three reasons for the increase in injuries and deaths,’” Raheel Faridoun, head of a newly formed occupational health and safety organization, explained. “A lack of respect for safety rules, the government not holding those who infringe safety rules accountable - and part of the responsibility must also be laid at the feet of the workers. They don’t abide by accepted safety guidelines and they don’t utilize what protective measures there are.”

As a result his organization is preparing a set of guidelines that he hopes the Iraqi Kurdish authorities will endorse and make legally binding.

At the local Ministry for Labour and Social Affairs, senior official Arif Hayto, says his office doesn’t deny that there’s been an increase in worker injuries. However he also noted that the number of injured workers who had registered their disabilities with his office only totalled 19 – all of these would receive a pension, according to local legislation.

“Labour law has been amended in the interests of the workers,” Hayto explains. “So that they can get assistance from social security in cases of injury or death. We are also working on this and following two kinds of action up. We’re looking at workers’ rights and we are also supervising workplaces and projects using special committees. If an employer is found not to be abiding by safety laws, then they will be forced to pay fines and they may face prosecution.”

Recently Asus Najib, Hayto’s boss and the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs in Iraqi Kurdistan, announced that several companies were being taken to court for exactly this reason. And Hayto says that plans for next year include more training in occupational health and safety.