In November 2016, one worker was killed and another was injured at the construction site in Kotor due to improperly tied cargo, a defective crane and unprovided protective equipment for work.
These irregularities were known to the contractors - foreman, foreman and crane operator, who were charged by the Kotor Basic Prosecutor's Office with a serious crime against general safety with a threatened sentence of one to eight years in prison and with causing danger by failing to provide safety measures at work that are prescribed and up to three years in prison.
They were found guilty of this accident and sentenced to suspended sentences. If they committed a new crime in the next year and a half, they would go to prison for five months each.
This is the epilogue of one of the criminal proceedings initiated in Montenegro in the last five years due to the death or serious injuries of workers on construction sites, who, according to the findings Center for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIN of Montenegro) - all ended in suspended sentences, acquittals, house arrest, or even fines for employers.
According to the findings of CIN-CG, such punishments and clearly established court practice not only do not have a preventive function and do not encourage employers to take care of the safety of workers, but are an obstacle to the efforts of authorities to raise the field of occupational safety to a higher level.
According to CIN-CG data obtained on the basis of the Law on Free Access to Information, in all proceedings, construction site managers, contractors and engineers in charge of security were accused of criminal offenses for which, according to the Criminal Code, a penalty of one to eight years in prison is threatened. if the worker was killed, and up to four or three years, if the employee was seriously injured, but none of them went to prison.
In all the explanations of the decision, it is written that the court decided to reduce the sentences of the convicts, because they have children and because they expressed remorse.
In one case in Kotor, even the director of the company that carried out work on the connection of the Boulevard from Budva to Bečić, although he was previously convicted of murder, received a fine of 2.500 euros, for the serious injuries that his employee sustained when he handled an irregular hose for concrete.
In the same city, the director of the company that was carrying out work on the construction site in Sveti Stefan, when a worker died due to improperly placed scaffolding, was sentenced to house arrest for six months.
In addition, there are also several cases in which the workers ended up with minor physical injuries, or material damage was caused, which resulted in fines or statute of limitations for the responsible persons.
Thus, in Ulcinj, the contractor, although previously also given a suspended sentence for the death of a worker on the construction site, this time received a fine of 5.000 euros, when due to improper execution of works on the bridge, the employee was buried by the collapse of the retaining wall and embankment.
Only in one case did the contractor, who had previously been convicted of endangering safety, receive a suspended sentence this time, due to a minor injury to a worker when he fell from an improperly placed work platform.
The union is demanding harsher penalties
The President of the Construction Trade Union, Nenad Marković, told CIN CG that the fact that the mildest penalties are imposed is a reflection of the overall policy in the field of occupational safety.
"The aim is to protect the employer, not the worker," he pointed out.
Marković says that the Trade Union is preparing an initiative that it will soon send to the Government, with which, among other things, it will demand that employers pay prison sentences for the death of workers on construction sites, because it is taken lightly, and it is about people's lives.
He added that the Union is also preparing a Declaration on safe and healthy workplaces, which it will send to the World Construction Union.
"We are fighting on a global level to make occupational safety a fundamental labor right," he emphasized.
According to the records of the Occupational Safety and Health Inspection, as CIN-CG previously announced, from 2015 to 2019, eight construction workers died and 27 serious and two collective injuries were registered at work. In the last year and a half, there have been four more deaths. Statistics on injuries at work, where there were no deaths, are quite unreliable, given that, as estimated by the Construction Trade Union, a third of construction workers "work illegally".
Falling from a height due to faulty scaffolding, improperly placed work platforms, improper load transfer and general failure to provide safety measures at work was, according to data from initiated and adjudicated proceedings in the last five years, the reason for serious injuries and deaths of workers on construction sites.
Investors most often sign contracts, according to which contractors are responsible for the control and implementation of safety measures at work, so they are most often responsible before the court, when an accident occurs.
Most of the proceedings were initiated by the Basic Prosecutor's Office in Kotor, and the court in that city ruled. All the accused were also given conditional sentences, fined or acquitted.
In the last five years, three proceedings were initiated in Herceg Novi, one of which ended with a suspended sentence.
Only two indictments were filed in Podgorica, one of which was related to an injury at work during the construction works. The proceedings have not been legally concluded.
In the last five years, in addition, two verdicts were handed down in the Basic Court in Podgorica, in one of which the director of a forest exploitation company was also given a conditional sentence for the death of a worker, and in the other, in which the facade fell and damaged the surrounding cars of the Police Department, the prosecution was rejected due to the statute of limitations.
The other prosecutor's offices also initiated one or two proceedings each, which were not only related to injuries on construction sites, while the prosecutor's offices in Berane, Plav, Ulcinj and Cetinje, according to the data they provided us, had no such cases.
The Judicial Council provided CIN-CG with information on four verdicts from Ulcinj and two from Cetinje in the last five years.
In Ulcinj, in addition to two fines to the persons responsible for minor bodily injuries sustained by workers on construction sites, there were also two suspended sentences to the managers of the construction site due to the death of the workers, because they were not properly protected during the demolition of an illegally built building and falling from a slab whose spillage was during.
In Cetinje, the two responsible for non-observance of safety measures at work were also given conditional sentences for serious injuries that the worker, as well as a passer-by, sustained at the construction sites in that city.
Fatal mistakes, no consequences
In December 2016, an indictment was brought against five managers at the construction site in Kotor, due to improper safety at work, due to which, in February 2014, a worker fell from a height of over 10 meters and died.
In this case as well, four defendants were given suspended sentences for half a year each, while one was acquitted.
In February 2018, the executive director and chief engineer of the contractor at the hotel construction site in the same city were charged with the death of a worker who fell from a height of 2016 meters in April 13,6, because they did not provide him with the conditions and protection to work on scaffolding, which was faulty.
One of the accused was given a conditional sentence, and the other was acquitted.
In December 2019, charges were brought against the chief engineer and his deputy at the hotel construction site in Kotor, because in September of that year they allowed the use of an unsafe and improperly constructed work platform. The construction site was not surrounded by a protective fence, so one worker fell from the work platform and suffered serious injuries from which he died the next day.
They were also conditionally sentenced to eight months in prison each, which they will not go to unless they commit a new criminal offense within three years.
In the same city, the contractor was given a suspended sentence of eight months, due to the death of a worker who fell from a height of 14,8 meters, because the employer did not provide him with a harness, safety net, or other conditions necessary for working at height.
Due to the death of one and the serious injury of another worker who were buried at the construction site in Kotor due to unprovided protective measures, the head of the construction site received a suspended sentence of one year.
In the indictment from December 2019, the executive director of the company and the engineer at the construction site in the UNESCO-protected city are accused of failing to provide conditions for the safe work of employees at the construction site a year earlier. The worker, who fell from the third floor of the building's unprotected terrace from a height of about 13 meters, died. The court proceedings have not yet ended.
According to the indictment of the Podgorica prosecutor's office, in June 2020, soil deposited on the edge of a construction site collapsed in the capital and killed an auxiliary construction worker. The accused are the head of the construction site and his associate for a serious offense against general safety, which is punishable by a prison sentence of one to eight years. The procedure is ongoing before the Basic Court in Podgorica.
In Nikšić, in May 2019, an indictment was brought against the manager of the construction of a steel structure at the construction site. Despite the fact that the inspection temporarily prohibited his work due to non-fulfillment of obligations in the field of occupational safety, he employed an untrained worker to install the steel structure on the roof. He did not provide him with the prescribed protection at work, which is why in September 2017, due to improper tying, carrying and lifting of the load, the worker fell on the concrete surface and broke his right upper arm and right pelvic bone, and bruised his lungs.
This manager is also being tried before the Basic Court of Nikšić for a serious crime against general security.
In February 2016, in Bjelopolje prosecutor's office, an indictment was filed against a construction contractor who was erecting partition walls on a building. It is alleged that he did not train the worker for safe work, nor did he provide him with means of protection, so he fell from a height of 2015 meters in March 8,5 and suffered serious injuries. The trial was suspended, because the defendant died in the meantime.
In December 2020, the Herzegovina Prosecutor's Office filed an indictment against the founder and director of a construction contractor in that city, who, according to the indictment, led to his death on the construction site half a year earlier by hiring an unprofessional person in order to reduce costs.
"The deceased RB was standing on the terrace of the first floor, when he started to remove the wooden formwork from the terrace on the second floor with a metal crowbar, he lost his balance and fell from a height of about 7,5 meters onto the concrete road in front of the building, because the terrace he was standing on was not was fenced, and he did not have a protective belt for his whole body with which he would have been tied, on which occasion he fell and died soon after from the destruction of his head and brain," the indictment reads.
They were also accused of a serious offense against general security, and the proceedings have not yet been completed.
In Bar, in March of this year, an indictment was brought against the head of a company that carried out work on a private house, because in July 2018, a man who was not working at the construction site took a faulty mixer to wash and died from an electric shock. The trial is ongoing.
The contractor at the construction site in that city was also given a suspended sentence because he did not provide the worker with working conditions, so he fell from a height of five meters and suffered serious injuries. Another procedure in which, due to improperly performed works, the land collapsed with significant material damage to nearby houses, was suspended due to the statute of limitations.
In Kolašin, those responsible for the execution of the works were released due to the fall of the metal structure during work on the tunnel in Platija, when one of the workers died.
They narrowly avoided death, the punishment for the employers is suspended again
In October 2017, in the Kotor Prosecutor's Office, an indictment was filed against the foreman and the crane operator, because in April 2014, at the construction site of the hotel in that city, they did not implement the necessary safety measures at work, so a wooden basket for transporting construction waste hit a worker who suffered serious bodily injury.
They were sentenced to suspended sentences of three months each.
In June 2017, another indictment was brought against the head of the construction site in Kotor, because in November 2013, his worker fell through the scaffolding while joking on the third floor, fell to the ground and suffered serious injuries. Although he was accused of a serious offense against general safety and of causing danger by not providing safety measures at work, he was only sentenced to four months probation.
A suspended sentence of one month was also given due to serious bodily injuries to a worker who fell through an unprotected elevator opening at the construction site in Kotor.
Another foreman at a construction site in that city was sentenced to a suspended sentence of one month, due to the fall of a worker from a height of 11 meters, who escaped death by sheer luck.
In October 2020, the Bar Prosecutor's Office filed an indictment against the contractor at the hotel construction site in that city, where two workers were seriously injured in January of the same year. In the indictment, it is written that the workers were not trained to work, that they were not provided with protective equipment, so they fell from the improperly placed scaffolding. The contractor was charged with a criminal offense against general safety with a threatened sentence of up to four years in prison, but was sentenced to a suspended sentence of six months.
In October 2019, the Hercegnov Prosecutor's Office filed an indictment against the representative of the subcontractor at the construction site in the town of Orjena, because, among other things, due to inadequately placed scaffolding, it collapsed. The worker who was on it fell from a height of about six meters and suffered serious injuries. The procedure has not yet been completed.
Branislav Šebek, the vice-president of the Occupational Safety and Health Association, says that convictions with harsher penalties would certainly affect public opinion, so it would take extra care to observe occupational health and safety measures in practice.
However, he reminds that the work of judicial bodies is independent, so the professional public, including this Association, cannot influence their decisions.
Šebek also assessed that it would be useful to organize a seminar, where, in addition to experts in the field of occupational safety and representatives of the Government and the inspection, court experts dealing in this field would also be invited, because the court verdict depends to a significant extent on their opinion.
"Occupational safety experts are often amazed by the opinions of forensic experts when it comes to the 'causes' and 'sources' of injuries at work, including those with a fatal outcome. Experts are mostly from the natural sciences, and court processes are of a legal nature, and therefore there is often mutual misunderstanding", stressed Šebek.
Suspended sentence for the returnee as well, verdict without explanation
In March 2017, the Herzegovina Prosecutor's Office filed an indictment against the subcontractor who was installing the roof structure at the hotel in that city and the chief engineer at the construction site. They are accused of not providing the workers with the conditions for safe work and of not acting on the reports of the control, which showed them that there is a great danger of injury to the workers due to a fall from a height.
In April 2016, one of the workers fell from the roof from a height of 8 meters and suffered a serious, life-threatening injury. The defendants were charged with having committed a serious crime against public safety. In March 2018, the two were sentenced to suspended sentences of six months in prison each.
Although, as can be seen from the verdict of the Herzegovina court, the worker almost died, and the accused engineer had already been convicted once before, albeit for a different crime, the judge decided to give him another chance.
The verdict has no explanation, because, as it says, "the parties have waived their right to appeal and do not require a written copy of the verdict."
And planting flowers is disastrous
Several proceedings were also conducted due to injuries at work that were not related to construction sites, but they also ended with suspended sentences or house arrest.
In December 2019, an employee of the Kotor utility company was accused of being responsible for the death of a worker who fell from a height of about four meters when he was planting ornamental plants in planters in front of a church in that city, by failing to follow the measures required for occupational safety. The procedure has not been completed.
In November 2020, the Kotor Prosecutor's Office filed an indictment against a warehouse worker who, in February of the same year, sat on an electric forklift to lower a pallet from the warehouse shelf despite being warned not to do so. As he did not know how to use it, he suddenly turned it around, hit the very colleague who was warning him and seriously injured him. Despite the threatened sentences of eight and three years, he was given a sentence to wear it for one month, i.e. house arrest.
In Kolašin, two indictments were brought in December 2016 and 2019, both due to accidents during forest exploitation, in which two untrained workers and without the expected protection died cutting down trees. Both ended with suspended sentences.
In Nikšić, the head of production in mechanical processing received a suspended sentence for seriously injuring a worker, while the director of the company was acquitted. One worker suffered serious bodily injuries during the exploitation of the forest, and his boss was acquitted, while the verdict published on the website has no explanation.
In June 2019, in Podgorica, a worker died from an electric shock, because the car service did not have devices to protect against electricity. The procedure has not been completed.
In Pljevlja, in August 2020, an indictment was brought for an electric shock, when a worker was killed, and the on-duty operator of the electrical control was charged with a serious offense against general safety. The procedure has not been legally concluded.
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