In Turkey, where occupational safety is largely disregarded and workers are forced to work face to face with death, 2,105 workers lost their lives in workplace killings in 2025. Despite this, no steps have been taken to prevent these deaths.
Serpil Ünal, Istanbul representative of the Assembly for Occupational Health and Worker Safety (ISIG), spoke to ANF about the workplace killings and what needs to be done to prevent them.
The crises of the capitalist system have made flexible work the norm
Ünal said that at least 2,105 workers lost their lives in workplace killings last year, stressing that the subcontracting system has paved the way for these deaths. She said: “Yes, in January 2026 alone, at least 146 of our fellow workers lost their lives in workplace killings. In 2025, at least 2,105 workers lost their lives in workplace killings. The most important cause of workplace killings is precarious employment. The subcontracting system, which has become widespread from public institutions to large capital-owned workplaces, further deepens this precarity. Due to the crises of the capitalist system and the demand for cheap labor, subcontracting, unregistered work, and flexible working models have become the rule.
Employers see occupational health and safety measures as an additional cost that reduces profit. Whenever possible, they make workers work without taking any occupational health and safety measures at all. This leads to an increase in workplace accidents and workplace killings. For example, falls from elevator shafts or stairwells at construction sites can be prevented by enclosing these openings. Yet this simple measure is seen as a cost and a loss of time, and for this reason alone, dozens of our fellow workers lose their lives every month.”
Workplace killings are most prevalent in construction, agriculture, and transport
Ünal said workplace killings occur most frequently in sectors where precarity is most widespread, particularly construction, agriculture, and transport. Ünal said:“Construction, agriculture, and transport are the sectors where precarity is most intense. Yet precarity is becoming increasingly widespread across all sectors. In this country, around 75 to 80 percent of people are trying to survive on wages close to the minimum wage. Unemployment continues to rise. Under these conditions, workers are deprived of safe working conditions. Unemployment means that employers have greater opportunities to make workers labor under lower-paid and more precarious conditions. In many sectors such as construction, agriculture, transport, and industry, workers are employed informally. Wars in the Middle East have also led to waves of migration, bringing large numbers of migrants. Capital owners turn this into an opportunity. Migrant workers are employed under precarious conditions and for much lower wages.
One of the most important factors behind the increase in workplace killings is the lack of inspections and impunity. State inspection mechanisms have become almost entirely dysfunctional. There is no longer any effective oversight regarding workers’ secure employment through the Social Security Institution (SGK), the status and licensing of workplaces, or the occupational health and safety measures that should be in place. We have witnessed a series of workplace killings in recent times, including at Dilovası Ravive Kozmetik, the Kartalkaya Hotel, and the Masquare Night Club. In the past, there were many similar cases such as Soma, Ermenek, Davutpaşa, and MarmaraPark. In hundreds of thousands of workplaces, workers’ lives are being put at risk. One of the reasons employers can act with such impunity in cases of workplace killings is the state’s policy of impunity.”
Ünal also said: “Over the past fifteen years, almost no employer responsible for workplace killings has received a prison sentence; some have not even been tried. In cases where public institutions bear responsibility, not only are public officials not prosecuted, but investigations are not even permitted. In workplace killing cases, those who receive sentences are usually the lowest-level responsible parties. In many verdicts, either the suspension of the pronouncement of the judgment is applied, or sentences are converted into fines.
The trial concerning the Davutpaşa explosion in 2008 lasted a full sixteen years. High-level public officials were not prosecuted. In the sentences handed down to those convicted, reductions for good conduct were applied and the penalties were converted into fines.”
Unionization rates are very low
Ünal said the rate of unionization in Turkey is very low and that there are serious obstacles to workers joining unions. She said: “In Turkey, economic and political pressures on the working class continue to intensify under the pretext of crisis. Barriers are being placed in the way of unionization. Bans on strikes and protests, as well as police attacks on actions to claim rights, prevent workers from unionizing. The rate of unionization is very low. For example, of 146 workers, only two were union members.
Ninety-eight to ninety-nine percent of workplace killings occur in non-unionized workplaces. This indicates the ineffectiveness of unions in these sectors. The fact that confederations with large memberships cooperate with the government and employers, and do not treat workplace killings as a field of political struggle, also contributes to the rise in workplace killings. Some professional organizations and unions, meanwhile, treat workplace killings as ‘technical accidents,’ rather than seeing them as a political choice and a class-based attack.”Ünal said the rise in workplace killings is not rooted in technical shortcomings and that preventing them requires a deep-rooted systemic change. She added that the fundamental condition for this is organized struggle.
Ünal said: “Preventing workplace killings and occupational diseases is not merely a technical matter; it requires a deep-rooted systemic change. The fundamental condition for preventing workplace killings is that workers are organized. Unionization rates are very low; yet being unionized alone does not mean being organized against this exploitation and pressure or being able to defend one’s rights.
Only when workers are unionized and organized can they ensure that occupational health and safety measures are implemented. The barriers in front of union organizing must be removed. Employing non-unionized workers should be effectively prohibited, and workers ‘right to refrain from work’ must be guaranteed.
Working hours should be reduced; a standard of a maximum of seven hours per day and thirty-five hours per week should be introduced to prevent deaths caused by fatigue and inattention. To prevent workplace killings, deterrent judicial processes and penalties must be applied. Workplace killings should be assessed not as ‘causing death by negligence’ but under the category of ‘probable intent,’ and responsible employers and public officials must be tried with concrete prison sentences. Occupational health and safety services must be nationalized. Under the current system, in which Occupational Safety (ISG) specialists are paid by employers, it is not possible for these specialists to be independent or to exercise real authority and sanctions to ensure necessary measures are taken.”
Ünal also said: “Another critical issue in workplace killings is the steadily increasing deaths of child workers. We have been drawing attention to this for more than two years. Child labor, which is legalized through state-led practices such as the Vocational Training Centers (MESEM) to meet capital’s demand for cheap labor, must end. Vocational education should be provided within schools and in line with children’s physical, biological, and cognitive development. Education must be fully free, scientific, and accessible to every child.
As the ISIG Assembly, we state that workplace killings are not fate or accidents, but a class-based problem that emerges from capital’s drive for profit and the state’s lack of oversight. Recognizing that it is not possible to prevent workplace killings through demands alone within a capitalist system whose sole aim is greater profit, we also stress that the working class must organize and struggle more.”
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