Young deceased working for the company Forestal Bejarano e Niño, S.L., on Monte El Peso of the municipality of Artzentales (Bizkaia). A trunk hit him while cutting the pines, the ELA union reports. “Accidents in the forestry sector are very high, every year there is a fatal occupational accident,” the union said, stressing that twelve workers have died in this sector since 2021. “High weights, work overloads, such demanding rhythms or heavy and dangerous machines that are used in hard-to-reach areas and steep slopes,” he explained that they make forestry activity dangerous.

22 workers killed in 2024

According to the LAB trade union registration, the deceased in Artzentales is the 22nd employee who died this year working. The first died on January 6, when he worked in Zaragoza (Aragon). Two of these 22 die in Araba, four in Bizkaia, six in Gipuzkoa, seven in Navarra and three in Euskal Herria (in Lapurdi, Baja Navarra and Xiberoa no personal death has occurred).

The ELA trade union has concentrated at noon in the Plaza Euskadi de Zalla to denounce “the complicity of organizations that allow companies to impunity and unacceptable labor death.”