HIBAPRESS – Casablanca
The fire that broke out on the evening of Monday, November 10th, inside the "Ideal" company, located in the Lissasfa industrial zone of Casablanca, did not only provoke a state of wide alert, but also revealed dangerous data related to the absence of the simplest health and safety conditions within this industrial unit specialized in the production of pastries and sweets, which exposes the lives of dozens of female and male workers to constant danger.
The Monday night incident, in which civil defense elements intervened to extinguish it, re-highlighted a worrying reality related to the absence of the simplest health and safety and professional conditions within the concerned institution. Far from the scenes of smoke and flames that alarmed various departments, the incident revealed a more dangerous internal situation, represented by the lack of necessary protection means that are supposed to ensure the safety of female and male workers during the performance of their daily tasks. Identical testimonies indicate that the unit lacks effective fire-fighting equipment, and that the escape exits are unclear or unsuitable, and the workers do not receive any training related to how to deal with emergencies, which makes the occurrence of any accidental incident a cause for a potential disaster, as fate willed that the incident was at night, otherwise the losses would have been severe. What increases the danger of the situation is what is circulating about the working conditions within this industrial unit, where sources from within it confirm that female and male workers work in an environment that lacks sufficient ventilation, that the hygiene conditions are poor, and that the professional pressure is high, in addition to exhausting working hours that may exceed the applicable legal limits. These data, taken together, reveal a fragile professional reality, which contradicts the laws in force and the principles of safety and prevention imposed by the competent authorities on production units. This, and the mentioned fire, re-raised the question of responsibility, whether at the level of the company's management, which did not provide the minimum safety conditions, or at the level of the regulatory bodies that are supposed to conduct periodic visits to examine working conditions and take the necessary measures to reduce occupational hazards. Given the importance of what this incident revealed, this file will remain open and a separate journalistic investigation will be allocated to delve into the reality of working conditions within the industrial units in the region, and to clarify the extent of their respect for laws and standards related to occupational safety and the protection of workers, within the framework of the media responsibility that obliges us to reveal the truth and sensitize public opinion and decision-makers to the seriousness of the situation.
