The Greatest Responsibility: Workplace Safety

• 01.02.2025
• Archive

Last month's tragedy at a hotel in Bolu Kartalkaya devastated us. Last month, we experienced one of the most painful and concrete incidents of how negligence or a chain of negligence can turn into a disaster. This tragedy once again showed us that a business is not just some doors, walls, windows, roofs, materials and equipment. The most fundamental pillar of a business is its people: its employees and guests. Therefore, protecting human health and creating a safe living and working environment for them is the greatest responsibility.

This tragic and devastating incident, which left Türkiye in mourning, once again showed us how vital the occupational health and safety is. As the Istanbul Chamber of Industry, OHS has always been our priority.

Although this sad event first brings to mind the issue of occupational health and safety, it should be seen as a case that needs to be evaluated with a broader perspective of Disaster and Emergency Management. This is why we have set the vision of our Disaster Management Branch established under our Chamber with this perspective. With our services in this unit, we are working to reduce the risks of industrial organizations against fire, flood, drought and similar disasters, including earthquakes, and to increase their corporate disaster resilience.

Reminding that we must first take the responsibility of taking the necessary measures to prevent our nation from experiencing such devastating incidents anywhere in our country, I wish God's mercy to our citizens who lost their lives in this tragic incident, patience to their relatives and loved ones, and a fast recovery to injured people who are still being treated.

Last month, we had our January Assembly meeting together with our Istanbul Governor Mr. Davut Gül, and discussed this issue and also mutual cooperation opportunities with esteemed representatives of the Sivas Chamber of Commerce and Industry (TSO)Assembly from Anatolia.

Sivas, like many cities in Anatolia, has been experiencing years of economic neglect. Given the fact that the number of people living outside Sivas for work and food is more than those living in Sivas, I think that the people in charge should solve the reasons that drive young people and entrepreneurs away from the cities that emigrate.

We discussed what we can do in this regard with the Sivas TSO Assembly Members at the meeting, which we hosted under the chairmanship of Zeki Özdemir, Chairman of Sivas TSO. First of all, I would like to emphasize that unemployment is one of the main causes of widespread unemployment in Türkiye.

Based on this fact, as ICI, we have been effectively implementing a very valuable vision regarding vocational high schools for the last 6 years. This vision is to restore vocational high schools to their former prestigious days and to bring them back to the top of our young people's educational preferences. For this purpose, we have created a comprehensive, innovative, participatory and result-oriented model with more than 150 industrialists in 44 vocational high schools in Istanbul under the scope of our ISO MEIP project (ICI Vocational Education and Cooperation Project) signed with the Ministry of National Education 6 years ago and carried out together with the Istanbul Provincial Directorate of National Education. Today, we are in the process of implementing this model in different cities of our country. Following the cooperation protocols we signed with Şırnak, Yalova and Bingöl Chambers of Commerce and Industry in the past months, I am very pleased to sign a similar cooperation with Sivas TSO last month.

I am pleased to say that these protocols will continue with different cities in the coming months and I wish you all a healthy and peaceful month.

Istanbul Chamber of Industry 
Chairman of the Board of Directors