Liliana Alexa's speech on the 3rd anniversary of her son Michael's death

Hi everyone,

My name is Liliana Alexa. My son Dragos Michael Alexa was killed on the 26th of September 2006 when a crane collapsed in Battersea. At that time my son was in front of our family garage changing a tyre on his car. I keep asking myself: How is that possible? Why? Who is responsible for my son’s death and also for the death of the crane driver Jonathan Cloke? Two young men lost their lives in seconds and 2 young children will grow up without having their fathers around.

Immediately after the collapse, residents, my self and my family with the help of Julia Brandreath from BWTUC and other union representatives formed the Battersea crane disaster action group.

Our initial aims were: Justice for the bereaved families, No more cranes older than 10 years, All the cranes to be independently checked and certified fit for use, All cranes to be registered in a central register ,HSE resources are insufficient to ensure crane safety, Enforcement of the law in building sites is insufficient, Many of our aims wore achieved but we are still fighting for the crane registry to become mandatory and of course No more crane deaths. The HSE board agreed to recommend a package of measures including a voluntary register of tower cranes which would be made compulsory sometime in 2010.

The register is part of a package of proposals aimed at improving tower crane safety that includes increasing the competence of those involved in erecting, operating, dismantling and examining tower cranes. "It's unacceptable that people are dying directly as a cause of their work with tower cranes and we want to prevent this toll of human misery. It is also important that the package of measures is successful in both improving tower crane safety and improving public confidence in cranes."

The Health and Safety Executive has brought us more anger by opting not to bring charges following the fatal crane collapse in Liverpool in January 2007.

Carpenter and father of two Zbigniew Swirzynski was killed in January 2007(just 4 months after my son was killed) when he was hit by a 2.4 tonne concrete counterweight that fell from the luffing jib at Liverpool’s Elysian Fields development site. The HSE said that the decision not to prosecute was reached after a “lengthy and exhaustive” investigation.

This decision is a kick in the teeth for construction workers. How can they have any confidence in health and safety provisions on sites if the powers that be can’t find anyone to prosecute in such a high profile incident? Tower cranes do not fall apart of their own accord.” An inquest ruled the collapse, as an accident caused by a “massive overload” and an unprecedented gust of wind. We`ve been dismayed by the announcement.

We continue to be concerned because there was nothing we heard at the inquest which suggested another fatality like this "couldn’t happen again.”

We always heard in the news that "SAFETY IS OUR MAIN PRIORITY", or "We LEARN FROM our MISTAKES". I want to know what they learned. Not much, because cranes are still coming down. Another young man Craig Page 26 years old lost his life when the crane collapsed on top of him in March this year.

It is absolutely disgusting, those people wore killed because of someone’s negligence and No sentence was given to those responsible for their death. No one is prosecuted. But I and others, who lost their loved ones in those circumstances, have given Life sentence. Bosses must not get away with MURDER.

My life was terminated on that day, when I saw my son crushed under the crane.

In the middle of a construction boom, with that set to grow with the 2012 Olympics, the absolute number of construction industry inspectors is disappearing. This is a decline in real terms, as there is more construction activity with the less number of inspectors.

We want more HSE inspectors on the construction sites, not less. We want to see an urgent action from the government, the crane industry and the HSE.

3 years, today since this black veil cover our lives and still no one was brought to justice. Bosses must not get away with murder. This investigation is taking so long and we can not rest until we find out who is responsible for the death of my son Dragos-Michael, What caused the accident?

For as long as I live, I made a promise to my son, that I will fight for this cause and I will make sure that my son Dragos, Jonathan, and other people killed in Construction sites didn’t lost their lives in vain.

We live in limbo every second of the day. It is so hard and painful thinking that I wouldn’t be able to see my beautiful son again.

My son was not working in Construction Industry, so if that happened to him, it can happened to anyone just walking on the street. We here today to fight for the dead, so needlessly killed, but fight for the living.