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Undocumented Worker Loses Arm in Workplace Accident, Boss Throws Arm in Trash

June 11th, 2009

241016Here at VL we’ve heard all sorts of stories about worker abuse from all over the world. Quite often, the victims in these cases are undocumented workers. This story from Spain just might be the worst I’ve seen yet. When a Bolivian immigrant worker in Valencia, Spain, lost his arm in an accident at the bread factory where he worked, his employer threw the arm in the garbage. Bolivia’s El Deber reports:

The accident occurred the 28th of May when the employee, Franns Rilles, a 33 year-old Bolivian, was working the night shift in an industrial bakery in Real de Gandia, in the Mediterranean region of Valencia.

According to the regional secretary of CCOO [Spain's most powerful workers Union], Josep Antoni Carrascosa, after the accident, the bakery’s owner drove the injured man towards a hospital in Gandia “but at about 2 km from the medical center he left him to his own devices”.

Shortly after, the owner “returned to the factory, cleaned up the blood and threw the arm into a trash bin,” according to the Union, which will sue the owner [on behalf of the victim].

Yet another story that tests our faith in humankind.

The victim had been working 12-hour shifts at the company for 2 years, where he earned the equivalent of $32 per day.

Via / El Deber

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