No one has revealed if there have been any other fatal accidents in the Iran Khodro plant—a point that would appear relevant to any assertion of generally unsafe working conditions.
As reported in Tehran news accounts, a dump truck belonging to a subcontractor plowed into a group of Iran Khodro workers. Some accounts said four men died. Others said eight.
The Iran Khodro company website blamed the accident on “careless driving by a Mercedes dump truck driver.”
The Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) quoted workers as instead blaming the deaths on forced overtime and the general absence of safety provisions.
A six-minute video posted on YouTube shows several hundred workers—perhaps more than a thousand—demonstrating in front of the assembly plant as the bodies are removed. The workers chant “Marg bar …” (death to), but the name of the person be denounced cannot be made out on the video.
ILNA said the accident occurred as the night shift crew was entering the factory last Tuesday. It said the accident precipitated a spontaneous protest objecting to harsh working conditions, especially mandated work on holidays.
ILNA said the protecting workers demanded a union to represent them and objected to being required to work on a holiday, in this case, Arbain, a major religious holiday. Hassan Sadeghi of the House of Labor told ILNA that Iranian law bars workers from staying on a job more than two hours on a holiday.
ILNA said Iran Khodro later announced it would no longer work seven-day weeks, but would close down Fridays hereafter.
Some reports asserted that sit-in continued at the plant for days after the deaths, but there was no confirmation of that.
The accident came just days before Iran Khodro announced it had set a production record, turning out 550,000 vehicles in the first nine months of the current Persian year, an increase of 20 percent over the same period last year.