Today, employees worldwide are commemorated who were killed in an industrial accident or who died of an occupational disease. The FNV trade union organizes commemorations during this day, but attention is also paid to making the working environment safer.
In the Netherlands, 4,100 employees die every year. That figure has not fallen for years, while employers are obliged under the Working Conditions Act to ensure a healthy and safe workplace. FNV does not have regional figures.
In January 2020, a 53-year-old man died in Drenthe in an industrial accident in Roden. A year earlier, a 26-year-old man fell several meters through a skylight while cleaning. He died two weeks later. The company was sentenced in 2021 to a fine of 50,000 euros.
Construction is the sector with the most accidents: “There is a fatal accident in construction almost every other week,” says Margreet Pasman of FNV Bouw en Wonen, Drenthe and Groningen regions. “We find those alarming numbers.”
The northern FNV member continues: “It is rare that the person himself is to blame for the accident. Often the work is not organized safely enough or there is too little supervision. We believe that this still needs to be looked at more closely.”
Heavy materials falling from a scaffold and landing on someone, entrapments of limbs and falling from a height: these are common accidents in construction. Not all accidents have a reporting obligation. “If someone does not have to go to hospital or has no permanent injury, it is not mandatory to report to the inspectorate,” said Pasman.
According to FNV, communication during construction work is also important. The union wants to break through the existing language barrier. “The operator of a crane can speak Dutch well, but employees who have to handle the load often have less or no command of the Dutch language. This causes many accidents, and we see how important clear communication is,” Pasman gives as an example.
Construction speech is the use of gestures that construction workers learn to communicate. “Building speech is a great tool, but we also see that it is not yet sufficiently established. Given the number of accidents, we still have a lot to do to create a safe working environment,” says Pasman.