The explosion in Trialo continued the black series of deaths of workers in Serbia. After tragedies, in only three percent of cases someone has to go to prison, and the authorities often react nonchalantly, labor law expert Mario Reljanović told Vreme.
Explosion in the plant for mixing rocket fuel in Trialo, Kruševac on Tuesday, it claimed the life of an 18-year-old young man, while four injured colleagues are in serious condition.
It is the third accident in Trialo in the past seventeen years, the first with a fatal outcome.
The factory announced that all safety standards applied and that the facility was under video surveillance. Minister of the Interior Bratislav Gašić visited the scene of the accident and announced a comprehensive investigation.
"The media is speculating whether this is the employee's fault. But it's always the responsibility of the employer," says Mario Reljanović, research associate at the Institute of Comparative Law in Belgrade.
"Because, in the case of dangerous jobs and handling of dangerous substances, the employer has an objective responsibility to establish all precautionary measures and adequately train the workers," adds Reljanović for "Vreme".
For some dangerous jobs, he explains, workers must be at least 21 years old, so it is confusing why working with rocket fuel is not included. "Because an 18-year-old worker could not possibly have experience in handling hazardous materials."
No one is to blame
Dozens of workers die in Serbia every year - in dedicated industry, other factories, on construction sites.
According to the data for the year 2022, that is 2,39 injured workers per hundred thousand employees - almost twice as much as the EU average of 1,3 percent. Reljanović calls that "catastrophic".
In the monograph "Criminal acts in the field of work", of which Reljanović is a co-author, states that in only three percent of cases where a worker is killed, someone ends up in prison, and as a rule, for a maximum of one year. The responsible person at the employer is punished in four percent of cases with house arrest, and in seven percent with probation.
In 86 percent of cases, therefore, no one is allegedly guilty.
"Obviously, much more attention should be paid to the criminal responsibility of the responsible persons at the employer, because that would obviously be the way to take better security measures," Reljanović told "Vreme".
"Well, it happens"
It has happened in the past that top officials react to the deaths of workers in the style of "it happens".
In 2018, when two workers at the construction site in Belgrade died in the water, President Aleksandar Vučić, expressing his condolences to the families, said: "That's life, those are the things that happen."
After the death of the Krusik worker in 2020, the president said that such "technical things" when testing new assets "always happen with weapons and will happen."
"There is a noticeable matrix of relativization of the value of human lives, especially in dedicated industry and in general industry close to the state, the army or the police," says Reljanović.
A particularly painful episode took place after the death of two workers of the Lucan factory "Milan Blagojević - Namenska" in 2017. At the trial two years later, the entire work collective was brought before the courtroom - to support the director who was on trial.
"Such a relationship could once lead to a huge incident with many more victims." Because, no investment is made, and attention is diverted with shallow arguments," states Reljanović. "We also produce weapons, ammunition and rocket fuel as we did a few decades ago."
He says it would be worth investing more in the robotization of dangerous jobs because Serbia needs industry - but it also needs living people.
"There is always a higher risk in dangerous jobs and the people doing them need to be aware of them." But this does not mean that the risks cannot be minimized. And we don't have that, we only do crisis management when a tragedy happens."
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