Sambaly Diaby worked in a crop company. A work accident with a machine caused his death. The court of inquiry number 2 of Santa Coloma de Farners initiated criminal proceedings in 2022. Sambaly’s family is asking for compensation for this workplace tragedy. At the moment, the matter has not moved on from this claim. The procedure – the family lives in Africa – is being complicated. Relatives are asked for papers that are difficult to obtain in their country.
Kisma Sumareh died in 2021 at work. Criminal proceedings were initiated at the Granollers Magistrate’s Court 4. The lawsuit is filed against the company’s insurance company. The process is stopped because it is necessary to prove, in the country of origin of the deceased, the affiliation of his wife and the rest of the family.
Mahamadou Kande suffered a fatal electric shock while working in a greenhouse in Lleida. The criminal procedure is underway in the court of inquiry number 3 in the capital of Ponent. The problem of taking the matter forward and collecting the corresponding compensation is repeated. It is necessary to prove to the country of origin that the family members requesting the compensation are their relatives. A procedure that could be predicted as easy, but which is complicated in this foreigner’s country.
These are just three examples. But there are many more. It is one of the lesser-known dramas of the added bill – after many migrants have risked their lives to start a new one – paid by the families of those who die here in a work accident. The justice they find after these tragedies is not the most favorable to their interests. Although in honor of the truth, the blame for these judicial obstacles must be attributed more to the bureaucracy of the system itself than to the endemic collapses and delays suffered in the offices due to lack of means and personnel.
They run out of money that their relatives sent them regularly and, moreover, when it comes to claiming compensation for the death, everything is obstacles and problems.
To help them with the procedures and ensure that foreign workers have the same rights as nationals when this happens, the first union of African workers in Spain has just been created.
A pioneering initiative to which the law firm Sammos Legal has been added, born to defend the rights of immigrant workers and, above all, to advise families on the procedures that must be completed for the claims to arrive. Most of the time the insurance companies make life very difficult for them and the courts turn their backs on them.
This law firm states that in many cases the documentation requested from the relatives “does not exist in the countries of origin of the deceased or is very difficult to obtain”.
So, the result of this added bill could not be more painful. “Families lose a loved one, are left without the financial support that was sent to them every month as part of their salary and, if that was not enough, they are denied the right to be compensated for deaths caused by hail imprudence at work or lack of safety at work”, complains Luis López, from Sammos Legal.
