Just between January and August this year, a whopping 34 people died at their workplaces in Sweden, according to new figures from the Swedish Work Environment Agency. It is the highest figure since the entire year of 2011, when 58 people died. Ida Ekenstein’s father, Thomas Ekenstein, worked in the construction industry, and was one of those who died at his workplace in 2018 when he was crushed by rubble in a shaft he was working in after the walls gave way.
– He was buried alive, says Ida.
Receiving that news was of course incredibly difficult for the family. Above all for Ida, who was 16 at the time, and describes herself as “daddy’s girl”.
– He was an absolutely incredible person. Kind, caring and always cared about people around him. He always stood up. The whole world collapsed. They didn’t understand. You couldn’t take anything in. It was all just chaos.
She continues:
– You have been so incredibly angry. You don’t understand, you get so irritated as to why. Why didn’t they do it another way? Why didn’t they just do the right thing?
Works in the same industry
Despite what happened, Ida has chosen to follow in her father’s footsteps and work in the construction industry herself. When she works today, she is very particular about safety.
– They think a lot about safety. People are very attentive to how things look around them. You react quite strongly when you see that people are not working safely.
She believes that there is a lot of carelessness in the industry.
– Often there is a lot of “I’m just going”.
The CEO was convicted
The CEO of the company that father Thomas worked at was convicted last year of work environment violations. Despite that, Ida feels that they have not received an answer from the company as to why what happened was allowed to happen. But the verdict helped the family.
The verdict was a relief when we learned that we were right. It had been done wrong.
Don’t believe in new laws
Erna Zelmin, Director General of the Swedish Work Environment Agency, is appalled when Ida tells about her family.
– Unfortunately, they are not alone in that experience. We have seen over the years it has varied between 30 and 50 and that is 30 and 50 too many. We don’t want people who go to work and don’t come home again.
But she does not believe that any tougher legislation is needed to bring the numbers down and urges employers and employees to carefully follow the regulations and rules that exist.
– There is a very simple answer, as Ida herself said: Follow the regulations. Do as you must.
Zelmin believes that the vast majority of fatal accidents should not have happened.
– What we see is what Ida describes. You deviate from routines, you go around corners and “just have to”. We see that most accidents that happen could have been prevented. We are not surprised but we are horrified.
“We see that people are careless”
The Director General continues:
– Employers have the ultimate responsibility for the environment. There you must have a security work worthy of the name. We see that people are careless with this and have many times had opinions on this.
On the other hand, Ida wants to make a request to the director general.
– I would like to ask what needs to be done to make a change happen now at once, not to prevent it from happening later.