'HABAŞ' reaction from the YENİ Party to the government: 'There was no proper risk assessment'

NEW Party Bursa Deputy Kayıhan Pala, at the press conference he held in the Parliament, made evaluations about the explosion that took place at the HABAŞ Iron and Steel Factory in Aliağa, Izmir, in which 17 workers lost their lives.

Describing the incident as "occupational murder", Pala stated that occupational accidents are the name given to unforeseen events according to the definition of the International Labor Organization, and that what happened at HABAŞ had previous signs.

Pointing out the responsibility of employers, Pala said, "These occupational murders that we encounter, to some extent, are perhaps not enough to call them occupational murders; in fact, they are employer murders, which actually reveal themselves long ago. After this murder, in which 17 workers lost their lives yesterday, different statements were made and a publication ban was imposed. But if we were to go back 10 years about HABAŞ, we would have to say that 28 workers lost their lives in the last 10 years."

Pala stated that in the news on the Sol News portal, occupational murders that occurred in HABAŞ in different years since 1999 were reported.

Stating that the news in question included the events that took place in 2007, 2008, 2013, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2024, Pala said that 7 workers were injured, one of them seriously, in the explosion that occurred in the steel mill furnace on September 28, 2025.

Noting that occupational murders continued to occur in the factory this year, Pala stated that on October 21, 2026, a subcontractor worker died by falling from a height, and on November 5, 2026, a worker working in the subcontractor was seriously injured in the explosion that occurred while inflating the tire of the work machine and died in the hospital.

Pala claimed that Israel is among the countries to which the company sells steel in its 2023 sustainability report. Referring to HABAŞ's 2025 sustainability report, Pala said:

"HABAŞ bosses and managers were actually aware of this work murder. Because when we look at the 2025 sustainability report of HABAŞ Iron and Steel Factory, we see that lost work accidents increased by approximately 56 percent in 1 year and by 118 percent for subcontracted workers. Before the work murders that took place yesterday, we have 2 questions about HABAŞ, where workers lost their lives and many accidents occurred in the last 10 years: Where is the Ministry of Labor? And what is the Ministry of Labor doing? What has it done so far? "If the Ministry of Labor had fulfilled its duty properly, we would have been able to leave aside feeling sorry for those 17 workers and continue our lives. But unfortunately, the Ministry of Labor ignores these processes. You know, we brought these up during the budget negotiations with the Minister of Labor last week."

"In the light of the data here, it is possible to say that a proper risk assessment has not been made in terms of occupational safety, and even if it has been done, the relevant measures have not been taken. Since it is known that there are many workers who lost their lives in the history of this factory, the employer is not solely responsible for the fact that this factory continues to operate without taking any precautions. We must say once again that the Ministry of Labor is also responsible here. This is definitely not a work accident anymore and it is never a situation that can be called fate.

We are talking about a factory where 28 workers have lost their lives in the last 10 years, and on the other hand, the government is trying to impose a broadcast ban against it. What is the purpose of the publication ban? Are they trying to prevent the facts here from coming out? The Justice and Development Party governments and the Presidential Government have failed in terms of employee health and safety. On the one hand, we see a large number of fatal work accidents, and on the other hand, a situation in which occupational diseases have no name, and it can be said that there are almost no deaths from occupational diseases. "It is impossible for us to accept these."

Pala emphasized that it is unacceptable that more than 2 thousand workers lose their lives to preventable reasons every year in Türkiye, and announced that they will submit a motion to open a parliamentary investigation on the prevention of occupational murders.

Stating that they had submitted their proposals before, but last brought them to the agenda again on October 7, Pala said, "Neither a broadcast ban will cover up this process, nor will those who protested this be detained immediately after the incident that took place yesterday. We do not accept this either. Turkey must implement a legal regulation on occupational safety and employee health in which workers do not lose their lives, labor is valued, public resources are not allocated for capital accumulation and profit maximization of bosses, and the public is a good observer and auditor of this process. "Otherwise, we will have to witness new workplace murders every day, which we never want. We will continue to do our part to prevent these workplace murders from happening."