In September 2024, 51 miners were killed in an explosion at the Tabas coal mine, caused by a gas leak. The state media labeled it an “accident.”
In response, our comrades from the Thawra (Revolution) core distributed leaflets addressing the massacre. They spoke of those who were buried deep in the dark tunnels, whose crushed bodies were brought out in wheelbarrows to fill the private owner’s pockets in Canada with dollars. The leaflet reads: “They say it was an ‘accident.’ Work is like that, things happen. But there was no ‘accident’ here. The fact that the tunnels weren’t gas-monitored, that workers weren’t provided with adequate safety equipment, and that even the self-rescue capsules—essential for mining—weren’t available to them, none of this is an accident, and it isn’t limited to just this mine. When we continuously face incidents leading to limb loss or death in workshops, factories, mines, and so on, shouldn’t we be looking for other causes?
The main cause of such tragedies is the greed of capitalists for more profit, which they achieve by cutting the costs of workplace safety and worker wages. In fact, capitalists, hand in hand with institutions that systematically suppress workers and strip them of the right to unionize, send them to their deaths. Consider that the average wage of miners, who face the risk of death, is less than $300 per month, and some earn even less. In such conditions, workers are forced to continue working in any situation to make a living, and if they protest or refuse, they face the threat of dismissal.”
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