A serious workplace accident occurred at a metal processing company in the Industrial Area of Patras, when a worker was mutilated, losing part of his right hand, which got caught in a press machine. The injury was particularly severe and the worker was immediately transferred for medical treatment.
The Patras Labor Center responded immediately, calling on the Labor Inspectorate to investigate the causes of the accident and hold those responsible at the company accountable. In its announcement, the Labor Center denounces that workplaces have become a “workplace jungle”, with serious deficiencies in safety measures, inadequate supervision and intense pressure for production intensification.
As it notes, most workplace accidents are predictable and could have been avoided if safety regulations were followed. Despite available technology that could contribute to preventing similar incidents and reducing the burden on workers, conditions remain dangerous, with human life taking second place to profit.
Union representatives denounce that workers’ health and safety are systematically sacrificed, while they continue to count, as they emphasize, “almost daily deaths and injuries in workplaces”.
The announcement from Patras Labor Center
Worker mutilated at metal processing company.
We will no longer tolerate counting almost daily deaths and injuries in workplaces!
The serious injury of a worker at the company in the Industrial Zone, which happened yesterday and resulted in him losing part of his right hand as it got caught and crushed in the press during work hours, is denounced by the Patras Labor Center. Yesterday it intervened with the Labor Inspectorate, requesting investigation of the causes and accountability for those responsible for this new incident.
Almost on a daily basis we have minor to serious injuries, which in many cases cost workers their very lives. We know very well that most workplace accidents could have been avoided if appropriate safety measures were taken and if there was supervision of work carried out under the employer’s responsibility. After all, in 2025, the evolution of science and technology provides the possibility to prevent accidents, even the most difficult and dangerous jobs can be done safely, as well as the possibility of reducing working hours and increasing creative free time.
However, the reality in workplaces is completely different. Staff shortages, intensification to “get the job done”, endless hours and safety measures sacrificed to reduce costs put workers’ lives in constant danger. The price is workers’ broken bodies, one death every three days, enormous wear on their body and soul, occupational diseases that sweep through, the overall breakdown of the worker’s life, who is called to be available however and whenever their employer wants.
Ultimately, the real obstacle to working safely is the profits of business groups, which were and are secured by bourgeois parties and all previous governments through their policies, as well as the current one, which dares once again to bring in the middle of summer – according to its favorite habit – a new anti-worker bill, in order to ensure maximum profitability for capital at the expense of our lives, generalizing 13-hour work, breaking working hours and taking off intensification and risks for new employer crimes! To the workplace jungle that capital and the government want to impose on us, as its faithful servant, we respond with organization, to throw into the unwanted every monstrous law that destroys our lives. The government will not only fail to gain our consent for this monstrosity, but will find us against it!
The Patras Labor Center wishes a speedy recovery to our colleague.
