In the Community of Madrid, labor accident figures show a disturbing paradox. The accidents fall, but the deaths do not stop increasing at a rate of between 12 and 15 dead more every year. At the same time, the deaths have changed: they are no longer only falls from heights or entrapments, but also infarctions according to unions.
In the Obreras Commissions Registry, 73 dead in the Community of Madrid were counted in 2023 and in 2024 the figure increased to 85, 16% more. This year the situation in the first six months has counted 49 deaths who, according to this trend, would be 98 at the end of the year, which would mean another 15%increase.
The figures differ from those of the Ministry of Labor, which reduces the figure more than 30%, because, according to the unions, the change in the profile of the workers or how they affect the heat waves is not taken into account. The main enemy. In the first six months of this year, 24 Madrid workers died from non -traumatic pathologies such as heart attacks or spills while working. Heat is the new enemy, although it is a factor not always detectable and, sometimes, difficult to demonstrate before a judge.
The case of the Cobra company, dedicated to the maintenance of electrical installations and distribution networks, illustrates this situation well. In June 2025 ,. José commented that his head hurt a little and that he was going to cool off to the bathroom. His co -worker Mario continued working, but was surprised because it took time to return. After a quarter of an hour, he went to see if his colleague was fine. He knocked on the door insistently and, not responding, agreed to the bathroom. There he found José, who died after a fulminant cardiorespiratory arrest.
When the Labor Inspection arrived, a place without ventilation or shadow areas were found, where the pauses for hydration were not regulated, according to workers commissions. That day, the outside temperature exceeded 36 degrees and José died without a fall or machinery in between, but because of the heat, the preliminary inspection on which justice must fail. The company had already been sanctioned before without measures, and the inspection concluded that not only did the regulations breach, but that the heat was the reason for the death, so it was imposed a “serious sanction” that could reach 50,000 euros, summarizes Pedro Bas, delegate for the prevention of workers commissions.
The importance of José’s case is that he broke a difficult dynamic to account. “Detecting heat deaths is complicated and usually swells other statistics,” adds Bas. For Patricia Ruiz, responsible for UGT Occupational Health, there is a lack of correspondence between official information and reality: “Neither what transcends the media nor the official data correspond to what we know is happening … There are workers whose pathologies make it worsen because of exposure to heat and that are out of the radar.”
According to the unions, behind this trend there is a perfect storm: the aging of the templates, the lack of preventive measures and the impact of climate change. 35% of Madrid workers are over 50 years old, which makes them a population especially vulnerable to cardiovascular diseases.
The Ministry of Labor, however, agrees that the accident rate with decline for every 100,000 workers affiliated with Social Security dropped 4.5% in the last year, from 2,066 to 1,973 accidents, and reduces the number of deaths. According to their data, last year in Madrid did not die 85 workers, but 71. In what both figures coincide is that the year does not draw a good panorama: between January and June 33 deaths were recorded, according to the National Institute of Safety and Health at Labor (INST), compared to 49 that denounces workers commissions.
The difference in counting is that the union includes deaths in itinere (On the way to work) and non -traumatic pathologies such as heart attacks or stroke. The differences do not obey errors, but to different methodologies: the INST collects only the deaths in the officially recognized day, while the unions apply broader criteria, including cases not yet validated or derived from indirect conditions.
According to Carlos Giménez, Secretary of Occupational Health of Workers Commissions in Madrid, non -traumatic pathologies such as infarcts and heat blows are consolidated as the first cause of death. According to Giménez, “accidents for heart attack or stroke are raising alarmingly, especially in the services sector,” due to the advanced middle ages of the templates, the shortage of labor inspectors and when it comes to doing health tests before even hiring. For unions. “The lack of institutional and business recognition leads to these cases being invisible, since the victims become a simple statistic.”
Meanwhile, in Spain, work deaths decreased 2.3 % between January and May 2025. Madrid continues among the three communities with more absolute deaths and also suffers a structural control problem. The region has an labor inspector for every 20,000 workers, well below the ratio recommended by the International Labor Organization.
