A 43-year-old worker on the Crossrail construction project in London has died after being struck by a piece of falling concrete.
Although this is the first worker to die because of a work-related incident on a Crossrail site, it is far from the first accident.
In October 2012, part of the excavation infrastructure at Crossrail’s Paddingon site collapsed, and in December 2012, a Crossrail worker suffered 70% burns after coming into contact with a live cable.
The project has been the target of sustained trade union campaigning after unions accused construction conglomerate BFK of operating a blacklist to keep union organisers off sites. The campaign succeeded in winning reinstatement for sacked union rep Frank Morris.
A statement from the Unite union said:
“We now expect BFK to meet with Unite as a matter of urgency. The contractor must explain how it intends to do everything in its power to ensure that a tragic incident like this does not happen again.”