The massacre of workers in Tabas Mines in Iran is due to the negligence of employers and the government!
On the evening of 21 Saturday September, 52 workers died in the Tabas coal mine, 22 were injured. This is not a natural and unexpected incident! This is a mass massacre and a crime against the working class! A class whose life has no value for the employer and the bourgeois government. The high number of killings of workers in mining accidents, construction works, chemical and petrochemical industries, and workers in metal smelting furnaces shows the continuation of this mass killing. The forensic doctor has announced that only in 2022, more than 1,900 workers lost their lives due to work accidents 2 days before the disaster, the workers had noticed methane gas leakage due to “eye burning, throat burning and nausea”, but no one took their symptoms seriously and this disaster occurred. The workers told the representatives of contractors that the work place is dangerous and it was impossible to work safely. The contractor representative replied that if they couldn’t work, they should collect their wages and go home. The workers did not leave for fear of unemployment, they stayed and worked. After the explosion the contractors came to the mine and asked the bodies to be removed from there! During the last week thousands of people showed their solidarity with worker’s family, including nurses and pensioners demand the justice for workers in their daily protests. Workers from Semnan Coal mine was in strake for two days demanding safety of work place and justice for workers of Tabas Coal mine. We, in the Committee of solidarity with the Iranian workers movement, send our condolences to the families of the workers. We condemn this negligence towards the lives of workers and the lack of safety measures in the work place. We call on the Iranian government and the Iranian judicial system to take accountability to compensate the family of all the workers, and the ministry of labour in Iran to implement the sufficient safety measurement in all work places. SWIW Committee 2 October 2024
