A/HRC/28/70 3. Public statements 123. In November 2014, the Secretary of the Mandazarin Province’s Labor Council, Mr. Nabid Rasouli, criticized what he viewed as the Central Bank’s and the Government’s inadequate response to rising inflation rates. Mr. Rasouli stated “Unfortunately, there is a great gap between the Central Bank’s inflation rate and the minimum necessities for securing the livelihood of workers’ families… The situation has put the most pressure on the workers’ community; while the administration and parliament, as officials responsible for the current state of the economy, are debating political and elections discussions, the workers are getting poorer day by day for not being able to secure their livelihoods.”94 124. In November 2014, MP Nader Ghazipour suggested that in order to keep pace with inflation, the minimum wage should be at least 2.5 million toman.95 125. In August 2014, the head of the workers’ faction in Iran’s Parliament claimed the 90% of workers in Iran were living below the poverty line, and that many others weren’t far from it.96 According to Iran’s Labor Minister, in a recent effort to make insurance more widely available they have provided of insurance booklets to 4.8 million people.97 4. Workplace safety 126. According to the National Medical Examiner’s Office, there were 657 work-related deaths in the first four months of the current Iranian calendar year. This is an increase from 632 recorded over the same period last year. Falls from heights, injuries from blunt objects, and electrocution remained the top three causes of workplace deaths. During the same period, the Medical Examiner’s office received reports of 10,109 cases of workplace accidents.98 In August, an unnamed official suggested that the Social Security Organization insured only 10% of workers killed during the previous year.99 127. According to Tehran’s Medical Examiner, there were 297 annual work-related deaths in the province by 1 November 2014. This is an increase from the previous year (the same time period was 282).100 128. In October 2014, Iran’s Minister of Labor suggested that the incidence of on-site accidents in small workshops (housing 50 or less workers) could be reduced by employing in-house inspectors, rather than solely relying upon periodic and possibly infrequent inspections.101 129. On 7 December 2014, Iran’s Parliament passed an amendment to Article 5 of the Social Insurance of Construction Workers Law. The amendment (an addition of new fees on employers and employees) was apparently intended to facilitate the extension of insurance to the uninsured.102 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 http://www.ilna.ir/news/news.cfm?id=219524. ptth://ansi.ai/ai/swen/93082714499/‫حداقل‬-‫حقوق‬-‫کارگران‬-‫به‬-2-‫و‬-‫نیم‬-‫میلیون‬-‫ تومان‬. http://ilna.ir/news/news.cfm?id=192832. http://ilna.ir/news/news.cfm?id=194078. http://www.tasnimnews.com/Home/Single/499224. http://ilna.ir/news/news.cfm?id=193999. http://www.ilna.ir/news/news.cfm?id=235136. Ibid. ptth://eee.ansi.ai/ai/swen/93091609587/-‫با‬-‫تصویب‬-‫مجلس‬-‫کلیه‬-‫کارگران‬-‫ساختمانی‬-‫کشور‬. 45