He worked twelve hours a day in a bakery for the grand daily payment of €23, without a contract or social security. At least he did until the 28th May this year. On that day Franns Rilles Melgar lost most of his left arm, cut off by one of the machines in the bakery. The employer in question drove him to the hospital, well almost. In reality he left him some 200 metres from the hospital, drove back to the bakery, cleaned up the blood and....tossed the amputated limb into the rubbish so that production could continue. The spirit of free enterprise.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
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5 comments:
So horrendous you almost couldn't make it up!
One of the most distressing stories I've read in ages. And this under a socialist government too.
Surely labour and workplace legislation should cover anyone working, even if they're an 'illegal immigrant'. The PSOE badly need to reform workplace legislation to stop this kind of thing ever happening again. And the owners of the bakery should be demoted to work on the shop floor. If only.
Good grief. I thought it was despicable when I heard today about an English employee in Tenerife signing a paper that he thought was to receive his (late!) salary payment only to discover that he'd signed his own leaving papers...but this is just beyond words.
@Tom
I don't think its a problem of legislation, what this guy was doing was completely illegal. The problem is that they probably go more for the illegal immigrants than for the people who employ them. Most governments in "rich" countries turn a blind eye to a lot of illegal employment.
@Julie
It just shows there are degrees of bad treatment
Absolutely tragic. And it's not just small businesses that do the worst exploiting.
Carrefour, Lidl, Aldi, Walmart and Tesco.
These are some of the worst international companies who are using workers in especially poor conditions when producing their discount clothing, according to a recent report.
And they have all refused to clean up their act when asked to.
For a link to this report see my blog:
http://www.bretthetherington.net/Modules/Blog/Pages/BlogEntry.aspx?BlogEntryId=348
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