The Namad-e-Eqtesad website, in its latest issue, has published a shocking report based on data from Iran’s Statistical Center, revealing a sharp rise in workplace accidents. The report states:
“According to data from the Statistical Center, the number of fatalities due to workplace accidents in Iran has increased alarmingly in recent years. From 2018 to 2023, the death toll has risen from 1,625 to 2,115, marking a 30% increase. This significant rise over five years is a serious warning regarding workplace safety and managerial responsibilities.”
“In the first six months of this year, 1,077 workers lost their lives due to workplace accidents. Additionally, in the first quarter of 2025, nearly 1,000 individuals sought medical attention due to work-related injuries, with 743 cases directly linked to workplace incidents. According to a report from ILNA, the Director-General of International Affairs at the Social Security Organization has stated that annually, 45,000 to 47,000 workplace accidents occur due to the lack of safety measures and poor working conditions.”
Driven by greed and profit-seeking, employers have no interest in improving workplace safety and show no concern for workers lost to unsafe environments. They are not even worried that workers might quit out of fear for their lives, as they know they can easily replace them from the massive reserve army of unemployed laborers. In these non-standard and hazardous conditions, they impose the harshest workloads on their employees without hesitation.
The social consequences of workplace accidents are severe. Every worker who loses their life leaves behind a devastated family. If an informal worker dies, their family receives no pension and loses its breadwinner. In countless cases, the Ministry of Labor and the judicial system of the anti-worker Islamic Republic have exonerated employers from negligence in providing safe working conditions—freeing them from paying compensation to the victims’ families—while instead blaming the injured or deceased workers themselves.
In the ongoing tragedies faced by Iranian workers, it is not only the capitalists—who ignore and violate safety regulations—who are responsible, but also the Ministry of Labor and other governmental bodies tasked with inspecting workplaces. Fatal workplace accidents are easily dismissed by corrupt labor department officials, who side with employers at the expense of workers’ rights. If the deceased worker is an Afghan migrant, they might not even be included in official statistics. The Ministry of Labor, in defense of capitalists, constantly tries to underreport workplace accidents and downplay their significance. Even with incomplete data, available reports confirm that, under the worker-hostile regime of the Islamic Republic, workplace accidents are among the leading causes of worker deaths in Iran, exceeding many other countries.
Capitalists, by their very nature, think only of accumulating wealth. They do not want to spend money on workplace safety. If workers’ struggles do not impose pressure on them, they will never recognize that workers are human beings, not mere tools for profit. Until the revolutionary uprising of workers and the oppressed dismantles the Islamic Republic and the capitalist system, workers must take matters into their own hands. Through organized struggle, they must force employers and the government to ensure workplace safety. The mass killing of workers in unsafe workplaces must be treated as premeditated murder.
Workplace accidents must be held against employers. Like any other demand, workplace safety will only be won through collective struggle and class solidarity, forcing capitalists and their supportive government to comply.