L’Usine Nouvelle – Since 2019, you have been identifying on Twitter the dead at work. How is the accident that caused the death of Tom Le Duault emblematic of what you are documenting?
Matthew Lepine: We find in the death of Tom Le Duault the different elements of many cases. The victim is young, inexperienced in the field in which she operates, on a precarious contract… Tom is a technical-commercial BTS student who works during his holidays! He found himself using a machine for which he had not been trained. I notice more and more often that the victims are alone when they die. It’s worrying… A colleague can warn of a dangerous situation, intervene quickly, call for help. The collective is important, and yet it is shrinking.
What are the profiles of the victims?
The most affected are young people, temporary workers and employees of subcontractors. Their common points? Inexperience and lack of time to adapt to an unknown work environment: the young person starts, the temporary worker changes jobs regularly, the subcontractor comes to a place he does not know. But the employer asks them to be immediately operational, which is not possible when you do not know the places, the machines, the colleagues. We don’t take the time to adapt.
[…]
This article is reserved for our L’Usine Nouvelle subscribers
Support expert journalism.
Login
Selected for you
