The National Police has arrested the owner of an air conditioning installation company in Alicante for allegedly hiding the work accident of an employee who was not registered with Social Security. His partner has also been arrested for capturing foreign workers to pay them a meager salary of 30 euros a day for their irregular situation.
The 22-year-old victim worked without being registered with the company, where he worked up to nine hours a day, Monday through Friday. She also worked some Saturdays and received a total of 180 euros a week.
One day, while he was alone installing air conditioning ducts in a workshop closed to the public, three meters up a ladder, the young man suffered a fall that caused his body to hit the ground on top of the same ladder.
This caused a vertebral fracture with spinal cord injury.
He began to scream for help and minutes later his boss arrived, who helped him get up to take him to the hospital in his van. However, as he was unable to walk, he had to pick him up to get him into the vehicle. It was then that he convinced his employee to say on arrival at the hospital that he had fallen at his home while hanging a television, since if he did not do so he could have problems with foreigners. To do this, before going to the hospital he had them go to the home of the injured person to collect his passport.
The victim told the toilets the version of his boss, who later called the worker’s roommate to inform him of the accident. The colleague also received a call from the hospital to inform him that his friend was in serious condition and that they had to intervene urgently.
When he arrived at the hospital they told him that he had to pay for his medical expenses, so he called his friend’s boss and he told him that everything had already been discussed, that he would take care of everything and that he would be there in two hours. However, he did not show up at any time and disappeared, which led the victim to finally tell his friend the true version of the events and ask her to call the police.
After obtaining all the data, the agents determined that the businessman and his partner used to recruit foreign workers from their company through social networks to take advantage of their irregular status to pay them 30 euros a day and, with little preparation, make them work days of up to nine hours a day, without any type of individual protection against occupational risks.
Thus, the victim had only been working for the detainee for two months, despite the fact that he was already left alone to carry out installations in the absence of labor protection means. The businessman lacked any type of license that empowers him to install refrigeration equipment.
The detainees, a 40-year-old man and a 32-year-old woman, are accused of a crime against the safety of workers and another of serious injuries due to recklessness.
