The ITF has joined Irish dock workers union SIPTU, during its urgent call for better protection for all workers in Ireland’s ports, after a 50-year-old truck driver lost his life in North Docks at Dublin Port on August 14. The death of the worker marks the seventh death of a worker in an Irish port in the last two years.
Published reports show a refrigeration unit was being loaded onto the back of the driver’s truck when he was struck and killed by another vehicle.
Paddy Crumlin, chair of the ITF Dockers’ Section demanded that the stevedoring industry ends the carnage on Ireland’s docks:
We call on stevedoring companies to reassess their working practices and health and safety protections for workers. These companies must undertake proper risk assessments of all cargo-handling procedures in consultation with their workforce
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He explained that industrial manslaughter laws are important because ‘they not only provide an avenue to true justice for the families of those people killed at work, but because the implementation and enforcement of industrial manslaughter laws will force the cultural change that will hopefully lead to fewer deaths at work.’
Moreover, Jerry Brennan, Ports, Docks and Harbour Organizer for the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union told media that these tragedies are taking place with frightening regularity.
It is beyond my comprehension how the construction industry has had the benefit of a national safe-pass certificate requirement for almost 30 years and yet there is no such corresponding national requirement within our ports and docks
In addition, Heather Humphreys, Ireland’s Minister for Business, agreed to a demand by SIPTU and the ITF to meet to discuss safety solutions. In fact, international reports show port deaths at a worrying rate of over one worker killed every week of the year.
