Construction-related deaths in Israel at least double most EU states

Read More

The rate of deaths on building sites in Israel was at least double the average in European Union member states in every year from 2011 to 2018, according to a State Comptroller report published on Tuesday.

The number of fatalities per 100,000 employed workers in Israel was higher than in most of the 28 EU member states, and was surpassed only by Bulgaria, Croatia and Malta, according to the state watchdog organization.

The report notes that from 2015-21, a total of 238 workers were killed in accidents in the construction industry. In 2019, a record 40 building workers died. The actual number of deaths is probably higher, however. According to the Coalition against Construction Accidents, in the seven years covered in the State Comptroller’s report, 283 construction workers – and not 238 – died in workplace accidents.

The new report further reveals that since 2017 the Economy Ministry’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has not had a unit dedicated to the criminal investigation of work accidents. As a result, the number of indictments has been in constant decline. These figures are consistent with several articles published in Haaretz over the past year.

According to Tuesday’s report, the unit ceased operations at the end of 2017. Some of the OSHA investigators retired or left public service, while others were reassigned to other duties. Responsibility for criminal investigations was delegated to the administration’s inspectors – in addition to their regular duties, and despite the department’s existing personnel shortage. In August 2021, the head of OSHA informed the State Comptroller’s office that the personnel shortages precluded the re-establishment of the investigative unit, adding that OSHA inspectors were pursuing 17 active criminal investigations at the time.

According to data submitted to the Comptroller, 13,000 safety violation orders were issued against construction companies for their sites between in 2018-21, but OSHA submitted only a handful of these to the ministry’s prosecution department for indictments: 13 cases in 2018; just one in 2019; two in 2020 and 10 last year. OSHA itself issued indictments in a few dozen cases, including some from investigations in previous years, but the numbers are in constant decline, from 36 indictments in 2018 to 21 in 2019, nine in 2020 and seven in 2021. Another issue addressed by the comptroller’s report is that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration does not track, analyze and draw conclusions from nonfatal and “near-miss” accidents.

The report also reviews the activity of the Israel Police’s Peles unit (a Hebrew acronym for “workers at no risk”), which deals with work accidents with severe injuries and fatalities. According to the figures submitted by Peles, charges have been issued in eight of the cases that were investigated between January 2019 and August 2021. During that period, 72 construction workers were killed on building sites.

Dozens died at Israeli construction sites last year. These are their stories

Construction worker killed in Israel’s north; firm already had 21 safety citations

New rule: Let construction workers in Israel keep falling

Hadas Tagari, the director of the Coalition against Construction Accidents, told Haaretz that the State Comptroller’s report describes a series of very grave failures in the Economy and Industry Ministry’s oversight of worker safety at construction sites. “The most regrettable thing,” she said, “is that the report’s findings are not new revelations, and we constantly and repeatedly warn of them in position papers and correspondence with the Economy and Industry Ministry, and especially in recent months, as these have seen a sharp rise in the number of lethal accidents at construction sites.”

In a statement, the Economy Ministry said it was studying the report and will comply with its recommendations in order to continue the improvement in enforcement at construction sites. Major changes are needed in this area, which is why the economy minister appointed her deputy minister to deal with the issue of preventing work accidents, and together they are advancing a reform in the area of safety.”