In this text, we present the results of a study that had the following goals: to analyze the fatal work accidents in the construction field in Rio de Janeiro between 1997 and 2001; to describe their immediate causes and the practices adopted by the companies where the accidents happened regarding the way they dealt with them and mainly to show the social impacts for the victims' families caused by their difficulties in claiming for their rights. In order to quantify and characterize these issues we conducted an active search using different information sources: work accident communications, police records, news published in the media, labor union reports, death certificates, public hospitals emergency reports, reports from the Forensic Medicine Institute, employment and social security cards and the records produced by the companies where the accidents occurred. The deaths circumstances and their impact upon the families where identified by interviewing technicians and workers. A work accident communication, a document which allows the victms' families to claim for their social benefits, was issued in only about 30% of the 74 deaths. The expressive number of fatal accidents reflects the lack of an effective policy regarding security in the companies and reveals outsourcing practices characterized by a succession of subcontracts, some of them being out of law and exposing workers to precarious labor conditions and to lack of social protection.
fatal work accidents; civil construction; lack of social protection