Denim Sandblasting Workers Solidarity Committee spokesman Professor Zeki Kılıçaslan explained to the press on Friday that his association was engaged in talks with the Health Ministry that they hoped would bring at least a partial solution to the problem of silicosis afflicting workers in illegal manual sandblasting shops. The situation is a prickly one for a number of reasons, Kılıçaslan explained, as they had originally petitioned for free treatment of the disease at state hospitals for workers without health insurance -- but learned that there is no treatment for the ailment.The Healthy Ministry has banned manual denim sandblasting due to the health risks, but this has not prevented illegal workshops from employing laborers to do precisely that. Kılıçaslan’s committee has completed a request for the Health Ministry to provide a monthly disability stipend for workers without health insurance who contract the disease at illegal workshops and a monthly stipend to provide for their families after their unpreventable death.
“As is known, to date 46 workers have died due to silicosis from denim sandblasting, while 650 more workers are struggling with the disease,” he said. The workers are not at fault for working at illegal shops and the state has a responsibility to monitor and prevent unregistered, uninsured employment, he noted. “We’ve been told that our request is against the logic of insurance and that [it would lead] others to apply for the same type of assistance. However, this illness can only be contracted while working, so the approach that ‘others will push for this, too’ is not right. There’s nothing wrong with other workers sickened while working illegally being given this right [to compensation] as well,” he said.
He noted that lawsuits were not an option for silicosis victims, as they would die from the condition before legal proceedings came to a conclusion. “In addition, there are notices and complaints filed by workers against their employers. The state could use its monitoring powers to find these employers and collect the stipend money from them,” he suggested. Kılıçaslan noted that about half of all manual sandblasting laborers were working illegally, and that a large portion of these worked in unsafe conditions. The decision on this compensation matter will impact all those forced to work under the table without insurance in Turkey, he noted.
Turkey sees first instance of silicosis in textile sector
Silicosis is an occupational illness, a disease of the lungs caused by the inhalation and retention of crystalline silica. It is a classic miners’ disease, seen in employees who work in tunnel and road construction as well as the foundry business, but the first instances of the ailment in the textiles industry has now been seen in Turkey.
When manually sandblasted jeans and denim became popular among young people in recent years, illegal and unregistered workshops popped up all over Turkey to exploit the increasing demand, with medical experts estimating that at least 3,000 to 5,000 people have contracted silicosis, though only a little over 650 patients have been diagnosed with the disease so far. “While the amount of silica used in sand during sandblasting should not exceed 2 percent [for health reasons], this figure has been determined to be around 60-70 percent in Turkish workshops,” Kılıçaslan said. “There are severe safety violations at the locations where workers have fallen ill. Employers figure that ventilation systems would be damaged by the sand and switch them off, workers are forced to work for 10-12 hour shifts, they are not given masks and some workers are made to sleep in areas where they inhale dust all night,” Kılıçaslan noted. İstanbul sunday’s zaman
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