For four months, four workers died at work in Kosovo

Only from January this year until early April have four people lost their lives in the workplace. The deaths of workers in our country are increasing year-on-year, and this is quite disturbing, say United Workers Union officials.

Jusuf Azem from the Union of Independent Unions of Kosovo, says the number of workers' mortality rates in jobs is alarming. The one for Arbresh.info, he said it was disturbing that despite all these cases we still as a state are not looking for anything in this direction.

“Based on data from January 2018 on four (4) people who died in their jobs. The age group of the dead are from 22 years to over 50 years of age all these people died within four months of the fifth year. The biggest concern for our union is that for the private sector and the deaths of workers during the work we like Kosovo are doing nothing about this laugh, all we're doing is just reporting that they're dead, but nothing more and more. Even company owners and employees are obliged to report their risk at work, and we as unions have made a request to the Ministry of Labour to finance a project to inform the union of the risks they face during their work, but unfortunately, they are not doing what they are called to do, and the obligation means no interest to them what is happening to the workers' lives of”, he said.

Azema added that from verification to field there is not enough control for the working conditions with which private sector employees work.

We know that during April this minister will organise an area related to the risk of work, but that's nothing because we can't be self-aware in just a year. When it's known that we have over 100,000 employees who are part of the private sector so we're not doing anything about this problem.

Within the past year alone, there have been a total of 20 dead workers at work. The Labour Ministry has a duty to educate company owners of where the workers might be endangered, but this minister did nothing to them. We as unions have been monitoring and visiting several companies about the 250 cranes that are carrying materials that are working in Kosovo, and since 2012 until now only one company has invited a company that monitors how much they are at the level or not. So this shows that workers work with material that they don't know if they're on the level to work with them and they don't know how dangerous it is, because they know how dangerous it is, they're done with Azem for Arbre.info.

And in the Ministry of Labour, they say they are monitoring all private companies that are operating in countries.

Basri Ibrahim from the Labour Inspectorate has said of Arbresh.info, that the primary focus of the Inspectorate is the construction sector, because from year to year, cases of the death of workers of this sector are being raised. He adds that in all cases they are taking steps.

We have the main focus on the construction sector, it's disturbing that four people have died in the workplace, mostly in construction, and in all cases we've taken measures based on competencies, and even this year we have the biggest focus in your builder and behind us based on the large number of deaths in this sector where only last year have 14 people died in the construction sector and it's been the worst year.

And we've started immediately with the inspection into the builder, and on April 1st, we've started with intensive campaign in the construction worker the special focus is skeleton. People who need to be certified, risk access to the workplace. They're in charge that if there's no skelete, it'll be suspended for a period of”, he added.
And in regard to the lack of employment contracts in this sector, Ibrahim has indicated that all companies will be fined in case they face workers working without employment contracts.

We've given fines where we've encountered these irregularities and we're going to continue to inspect this sector and stop the work of all companies where we see there are no conditions for employment. We will not have a compromise against companies where they do not meet the conditions for work. Where no business contract is automatically fined. Last year we've had about 1500 employees we've legalized even this year is about the same, there's been a lot more workers working without a job contract, and I believe that the fines have achieved their effect because we're now improving in terms of the <x1...

We remember that the most endangered job - accident sector continues to be even further involved in the construction sector, but within the past year, 14 people in this sector have been living in jobs.