Vigil For Killed Polish Worker Highlights Cruel Negligent Deaths At Work

Zbigniew Swirzynski was a Polish construction worker and father of two who came here from Poland with his young family to earn a decent wage.

Their view of British industry practice was that it proved a safe working environment.

But bad weather and a callous employer who ignored all health and safety concerns, conspired to kill him when a Falcon crane collapsed, trapping him under it's 2 ton counter weight.

The Inquest into his death on 15th January 2007 started today 8th July 2008 at Liverpool Coroners Court.

Following the inquest, the Liverpool Coroner said he will be writing to the Government asking them to look into crane safety.

However, this was not the only incident involving a Falcon Crane which killed a construction worker.

On 26th September 2006, a Falcon crane collapsed on a Battersea construction site killing the driver Jonathan Cloke and a member of the public working on his car outside his mothers house Michael Alexia.

The Battersea Crane Disaster Action Group (BCDAG) set up by Michael’s mother Liliana and his partner Angela, have been campaigning ever since to find out why so many cranes have collapsed and for far greater safety in the use of cranes across the country.

On the day of the Coroners hearing, July 8th , they and Families Against Corporate Killing, held a vigil outside the coroner's court in Old Hall Street in Liverpool's business quarter, witnessed by the TV and print media and those heading into work.

FACK is a national campaigning network formed by relatives of people killed at work. It campaigns to stop workers and others being killed in preventable incidents and helps bereaved families by directing them to sources of legal help and emotional support.

The campaign is seeking urgent government action to halt the complacency about deaths at work and decent laws with will bring dangerously negligent bosses to justice. FACK wants a review of the way work-related deaths are investigated and the way families are treated. And it believes workers and safety reps must be given more rights to protect themselves against exposure to unacceptable risks to their lives and health.

Coverage was given to the vigil by BBC local news and Granada TV local news, but little mention occurred in the printed press as usual.

The Liverpool Daily Post article pictured above did refer to both the Battersea Crane Disaster Action Group (BCDAG) and Families Against Corporate Killing, whose supporters of both organisations attended the Coroner's Court in support of the victim's family members.

 

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