(en) FAU-IAA, Direct Action #231 - When murders are called
"working accidents" -- Management failings at a greek oil refinery
resulted in the death of four workers
On the 8th of May 2015, six workers were seriously injured due to a leak from a gas tank
while they were working on the maintenance of the oil refinery "Ellinika Petrelea" (Greek
Petroleum Company, EL.PE.) at Aspropyrgos, Athens. Four died of their burns within days.
---- This mass fatality at the oil refinery EL.PE. happened while the workers were working
on tanks which had not been maintained for one and a half years. The owners had decided to
postpone all maintenance work in the factory, as it would have resulted in over two months
of closure. The result of this delay was the death of four people plus the serious injury
of another two.After several postponements the managers decided to start maintenance on
the 29th of April with the deadline scheduled for one month later - half the time needed
for the volume of work required. Later, they decided to narrow it down to 25 days. There
are two obvious reasons for EL.PE. to force its workers to finish the maintenance
processes earlier than projected. First of all, at that time, the revenue of the company
was growing rapidly, so any pause of its activities would automatically translate to a
huge financial blow for EL.PE.
Secondly, the heads of the company, as well as some associated contractors, receive higher
bonuses if they finish projects earlier.Over the last few years working conditions have
gotten worse and worse. Within the last three years the number of workers has shrunk from
2700 in 2012 to 1600 in 2015, while in the technical department there are only 100 workers
left, from 250 almost 5 years ago. The decrease in the number of staff was mainly done
through voluntary retirements of experienced workers. In addition, their salary was cut
down by 20%. Meanwhile, the salary of the highest ranked staff of EL.PE. has increased.
The biggest concern of the management is to fire as many workers as possible in order to
increase profits.With a reduced number of workers, the maintenance process could no longer
be completed within a few weeks. As a result, management found an even easier way to do it
- by hiring an external company that did it for them. They hired some temporary workers,
the vast majority of whom were inexperienced and jobless for many months. Their salary was
below four euros per hour. More than 3.000 workers were packed into the oil refinery,
working daily for 12 to 16 hours. In 2013, EL.PE. was among the top performing companies
in Greece and in the first trimester of 2014 it had revenues of 417 million euros.
AN EXAMINATION OF THE DEATHS OF WORKERS AT AN EL.PE. OIL REFINERY
What really matters for companies like EL.PE. is increasing their profits. On the one hand
they have to take into consideration the costs of health and working insurance for
workers, which can be calculated in compensations, possible fines from the state or lost
working time because of an accident. On the other hand they have to calculate the costs of
the proper safety measures plus the salaries of experienced workers. For them the cost of
a life lost (in this case four) is much lower than the cost of having sufficient safety
measures. It was no accident, it was murder that stemmed from the bosses' greed. It is
worth noting that the two main investors in EL.PE are a private corporation (Latsis Group)
and the Greek state. This makes it even clearer that in order to achieve faster growth in
times of crisis, both the Greek state and foreign investors will gladly step over the
corpses of workers.
We can also blame the unions both in EL.PE. and in other working places that agree and
accept any order from the bosses, selling out the working class struggle. The PanHellenic
Worker's Union at EL.PE. signed all the documents coming from the management of EL.PE.
that both reduced the number of workers and shut down the strikes that workers had been
trying to organize since 2011. It is clear that in this case the workers' union serves the
interest of management not the workers. Even after the murders, they announced that "the
union should try to prevent any act of exploitation of the incident coming from a third
person who maybe wants to harm the company's interests"! Not only do they condone the
murder of workers, they warn others not to take an interest in the lives of the workers.
It's not the first time that the Latsis Group has committed the same crime. In 1994, 15
workers died at an explosion in PETROLA, a similar company that was later assimilated
within the structure of EL.PE. This was framed as an "accident" by the media and no
consequences followed.
NO CHANGE IN SIGHT
No doubt - EL.PE. will absolve itself of responsibility by claiming that the murder of the
workers was a human mistake and by paying a few million dollars in compensation to the
affected families. The only investigation being carried out is by EL.PE. itself, which
will of course do nothing more than legitimize their response and, along with a compliant
media, ensure that the incident is soon forgotten. And if anyone tries to stand up, to
protest, or to remind people that these are not accidents, but murder, they will have to
face the same police brutality, and Golden Dawn's henchmen, as happened on the 13th of
June at a demonstration outside the company's headquarters in Marousi, Athens. Over the
past five years in Greece there has been 26,405 workplace "accidents" in which 358 workers
have lost their lives. These numbers don't even account for those without insurance who
work black, under the radar. If these unseen workers are taken into consideration, the
number of deaths becomes unimaginable.
Anastasis Koutsogiannis
https://www.direkteaktion.org/231/murders-called-working-accidents/?searchterm=When%20murders%20are%20called
