Amara Dioumassy failed one time ago, egging labour unions to call for better safety norms. Paris, France – Under a soft but steady rain, several dozen people gathered on Pont d’Austerlitz, the ground over the Seine River, on a late April Saturday, shielding themselves with scarves, hoods and screens. Some held up signs and banners that called for “ Justice for Amara ”. Others read “ Amara, a victim of serious employer onsite safety breaches.
”The rally in Paris, organized by one of France’s largest labour unions, the Confederation Generale du Travail (CGT), was in honour of Amara Dioumassy, who was killed on June 16, 2023 while working on a construction design as a administrator at the Bassin d’Austerlitz to ameliorate the quality of the Seine. Dioumassy, a 51- time-old father of 12 from Mali, was hit by a truck near the end of his shift. “We organised this mobilisation to recognize our family, comrade and co-worker, ” said Lyes Chouai, CGT’s union delegate for Sade, the company that employed Dioumassy.
“ There were serious safety issues. There were no signs for rambler crossings, no business inflow, the exchanges didn't have a beep sound when backing up, indeed though there was poor visibility. There was no bone directing the exchanges, ” he added. Chouai visited the point after the tragedy. “ I met a youthful man who told me that Amara was one of the first people to arrive on point on the morning of June 16. He'd bought a bag of after and distributed them to all the workers, encouraging them to take further than one.
“ Amara’s colleague had gashes in his eyes when he told me this story. Amara was someone who always smiled and was kind and generous to people he worked with and his musketeers. He was a force of nature, but his face always had kindness and he always looked after people. His family also told me he was always the person who his sisters and sisters commended in, who moderated family conversations and looked after everyone in Mali.
” The Bassin d’Austerlitz design, which bring 100 million euros($ 109m) according to the mayor’s office, is intended to store rain and wastewater, precluding it from flowing directly into the Seine. Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, has approved a request to memorialize Diou-massy near where he was killed. “ An alley in Square Marie- Curie will bear his name, ” the megacity of Paris said. drawing up the Seine has been one of the keystones of Hidalgo’s alternate term. The megacity has promised that the Seine will be clean enough to host open- water swimming and triathlon events during the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics.
“ Because of the Olympics, there were deadlines to meet for certain construction spots, similar as this one, which had the thing to make the Seine more swimmable for the Olympics and the events that will take place. numerous of the megacity’s grand systems for the games, similar as those to clean up the Seine, come with labour costs. degrees of labour law enforcement. There have been at least 181 plant accidents, including 31 serious accidents, on construction systems related to the Olympics, according to Nicolas Ferrand, director of SOLIDEO – a intimately- funded establishment established to make the endless installations that will remain after the event.
Accidents and workers ’ rights violations aren't unique to Olympics construction, but there's pressure to complete everything by the hard deadlines set for the games, and safety can start to slip through the cracks. This is a trend that Jules Boykoff, experimenter and author of the book Power Games A Political History of the Olympics, has observed throughout multiple venues, including London and Rio de Janeiro. “ When it comes to the megacity, the Olympics frequently acts like a sponger and puts all these different demands on metropolises, including the deadlines that the Olympics automatically bring, ” Boykoff told Al Jazeera.
“ When you have deadlines, like to make the Olympic Village, for illustration, all feathers of possibilities around corruption that protest into stir – all feathers of possibilities around worker exploitation to meet those external deadlines by that parasitic organization, the IOC (International Olympic Committee).
” previous to the games, Paris 2024 Organizing Committee and its mates established a “ social duty ” with social, profitable and environmental pretensions, inked by trade unions and employer organisations on June 19, 2019. The duty promised to “ fight against illegal labour, anti ‑ competitive practices, and demarcation, and will cover working conditions and limit unstable employment ”.
“ The Olympic Charter, in malignancy of everything, has made it possible to reduce the peril of construction spots. To have better traceability, indeed if everything isn't perfect, ” Gerard Re, confederal clerk of the CGT in charge of the rights of migratory workers, told Al Jazeera. “ With multiple subcontracting companies, inescapably, some of them worked with undocumented workers. nonetheless, the fact that we had this duty and an organising commission with different representatives helped alleviate the possible goods.
” As part of the duty, much of the construction for Olympic venues is directed SOLIDEO. The Bassin d’Austerlitz design was not, still, part of this group. “ On SOLIDEO systems, there were further regulations, respect for work, ” Re said. In France, where further than two workers are killed on average every day on construction spots according to the most recent report from France’s public health insurance system, the added pressure aggravated ongoing challenges.