With an action at the Elliniko construction site, beneath the Tower, the Rouvikonas collective brought workplace accidents and safety conditions back into the spotlight. In a statement, it condemns increasingly intensive work, gaps in protective measures and inadequate inspections, citing specific injuries and deaths recorded in the Elliniko area in recent years.
According to the figures it presents, workplace deaths exceeded 108 by August 2026, continuing the high rate of previous years, as 2025 ended with at least 201 deaths. The statement speaks of one worker dying every two days in 2026.
Rouvikonas attributes this situation to employers acting with impunity, arguing that protective measures are treated as a cost and productivity is elevated to the only value that matters. It also accuses the state of understaffing inspection bodies and using legislation to restrict trade union activity, creating conditions it describes as “places of human sacrifice.”
Specifically regarding the Elliniko project, the collective describes a “construction site turned graveyard” operating under the Latsis family's Lamda Development, with another 18 contracting companies involved, including METKA, a subsidiary of the Mytilineos group. Across the roughly 40 construction sites on the property, it describes overwork, disregard for protective measures and intensified work to meet deadlines, contrasting the term “investment prospects” with what it calls “modern slavery” for workers.
Among the incidents cited, on November 24, 2025, a worker at METKA's Riviera Galleria construction site collapsed and died after returning home from his shift. The Elliniko Workers' Union alleges that the worker was working 12- to 15-hour shifts, which METKA had dubbed “normality.”
On June 9, 2026, at the IRCE casino construction site, under a TERNA subcontract, a worker who had been working for 10 consecutive hours lost fingers while installing metal sheets; it was the second accident in the same team during the same shift.
Also, on August 26, 2026, a 73-year-old construction worker died after falling 3 to 4 meters into the elevator shaft of a four-story apartment building under construction in Elliniko. The statement notes that temperatures reached 38 degrees Celsius or more and that inspection bodies were examining whether heat exhaustion had caused the fall.
Rouvikonas argues that if inspection bodies operated effectively instead of merely “putting out fires,” they would have identified the disregard for protective measures and prohibited a 73-year-old from working under those conditions. It describes the sequence of events as an “admission” that inspections function as a “victim counter” and nothing more.
In its closing rhetoric, the collective describes the project as a “Riviera painted with the blood” of workers and warns that the promised new jobs will translate into more deaths and injuries, with 13-hour shifts and favors after the project is completed. It declares that “no employer killing will go unanswered” and calls for organizing and struggle until workplaces cease to be “death traps.”
Comments