Abbas Shiri, an inspector from the Construction Workers Union, dismissed the claim of insuring 70,000 construction workers as false and criticized the Social Security Organization, saying that if the insurance of workers is true, they should “provide us with documents and evidence!”
According to the state-run ILNA news agency, in response to the recent denial by the Social Security Organization regarding the termination of government-paid insurance for “300,000 to 400,000 construction workers,” Shiri said that since this organization inspects construction workers twice a year, how come “despite these inspections, there were 300,000 to 400,000 fictitious workers whose insurance should be terminated?!”
The inspector from the Construction Workers Union, rejecting the claim of the legal legitimacy of filtering workers by the Social Security Organization, said that the agents of this organization, who are hired by the private sector and brokerage firms, “lack the necessary expertise. They charge around 700,000 rials (approximately $1.16) for their contact, and for every termination of insurance they can make, they receive more commission.”
He also emphasized that the insurance inspectors of this organization “easily consider construction workers as fictitious in order to receive more commission,” adding that they only go to a construction site once “and if the worker is absent for any reason that day, they abandon them and terminate their insurance.”
The inspector from the Construction Workers Union called for the participation of civil labor institutions in distinguishing real workers from fictitious ones during inspections and said that “triangular inspections” should be observed: “Meaning that in inspections in a city, the inspector of the Social Security headquarters, the inspector of the Social Security branch, and the inspector of the Construction Workers Association should be present.”
Previously, the Social Security Organization, while confirming the termination of insurance for construction workers, considered this action as a type of “filtering out real construction workers” who have “unfairly benefited from government support in this regard.”
The organization, while considering the filtering of construction workers legal, stated that this “was not a new action and is within the legal duties and missions of this organization.”
According to this report, labor activists have repeatedly protested against the unconventional inspection methods of the Social Security Organization and considered it as “part of a cunning plan to reduce the burden of insurance costs for construction workers.”
Recently, some labor activists and organizations, in statements commemorating International Workers’ Day on May 1, criticized the “anti-worker policies of the government” and emphasized the necessity of “unity of action, organization, and mobilization” of workers and wage earners to change the current situation in Iran.
According to these statements, dire economic conditions such as wages three times below the poverty line, untimely payment of wages, lack of job security, increased inflation, and reduced purchasing power of households have put tens of millions of workers and their families under pressure.
