“Safety at work: company responsibility, everyone’s vigilance”. This is the slogan of the communication campaign launched on Monday September 25 by the government on the prevention of workplace accidents. The latter will be based on different visual and written supports, aimed at employees, businesses but also the general public. In a video clip broadcast on September 25, lasting forty-five seconds, the camera films the looks of the employees of an industrial company: without showing the drama, we understand that something serious has just happened. The end of the spot shows a woman bursting into tears on the phone, followed by the message: “Every day, two people die at work and more than a hundred are seriously injured. »
This initiative from the Ministry of Labor is notably the result of the action of a group of families of victims of fatal accidents, which the office of the Minister of Labor, Olivier Dussopt, received several times at the start of the year. In June, a new decree had already marked progress, requiring employers to inform the labor inspectorate within twelve hours when an employee is the victim of a fatal workplace accident. Caroline Dilly, spokesperson for the collective (now an association) and mother of Benjamin, a 23-year-old roofer who died of a fall on February 28, 2022 in Chinon, is satisfied: “I find the clip worthy, we didn’t need bloody images. We understand that anything can happen to anyone at work. It’s only a small drop in the ocean, but finally the State recognizes that there is a problem. »
This ” issue “ is expressed in figures: with 640,000 reported accidents and 696 deaths at work among employees of the general scheme and the agricultural scheme in 2021, France is the country where the most deaths at work occur in Europe. “We had never had a campaign on risk prevention since the 1950s, reacts Anthony Smith, CGT union official at the Ministry of Labor. The challenge raised by the victims’ association is beginning to bear fruit. But we had to wait until France was in pole position in Europe to do something. »
For the family collective, it is now a matter of going further. “The State provides thematic sheets, but we don’t see any on supporting grieving families, while no one really knows the first steps to take in the event of a tragedy, who we should call”remarks Caroline Dilly.
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