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World Day for Health and Safety at Work is celebrated on April 28. For the occasion, the President of the Acli Association of Caserta Paolo Ricotti published a long note which we report in full below:
“The latest accidents at work, such as the one on the construction site in Florence and in the Suviana hydroelectric power plant, must not only discourage us but rather make us become even more aware that we can win the challenge against accidents and occupational diseases only by teaming up with all the subjects involved in every capacity.
The sanctioning system is not sufficient to contain this phenomenon, especially if the controls continue to be so few, more is needed because the issue, as we have been repeating for years now, is cultural: information and training moments are needed that involve workers constantly over time, as one or a few training initiatives required by law will never be sufficient.
Every time we approach World Day, comments on the topic of health and safety increase, as does every time we record a death at work, but then it would seem almost impossible to be able to achieve effective prevention in our country. But is it really like that?
The data released by Inail last February in a dossier that examines the last five years are clear: from 2018 to 2022, reports with fatal outcomes in the workplace are always above 1,000 incidents, with a peak of 1,503 in 2020. The first available data for 2023 also reports 1041 cases, while those relating to the first two months of 2024 are 100, or 5 more than in the same period of 2023.
In the same five-year period, the number of accident reports fluctuated between 640,000 and 705,000. However, the data for 2023 is decreasing, recording 585,356 complaints. The sectors most affected remain the same: construction, transport and warehousing, healthcare, wholesale and retail trade, as well as repairs of motor vehicles and motorcycles. Trend reversal in the first 2 months of 2024, with an increase of 7.2%.
As regards occupational diseases, however, the trend recorded in the five-year period shows an increase with the highest figure recorded in 2022 with 60,744 reports. 2023, although the data is still provisional, markedly confirms the trend, with 72,754 complaints. This probably also derives from the fact that greater widespread awareness among workers is allowing the phenomenon to emerge. The first two months of 2024 recorded a further increase of 35.6%.
At the same time we can say that there would be no lack of economic resources to combat these phenomena, or at least to intervene in the sectors that cause greatest concern. In fact, INAIL has recently declared, also for the 2024 budget, an economic surplus forecast of 2 billion euros (the 2023 final balance closed with over 2 billion and 600 million euros of economic surplus). However, many of these resources are tied up by law and this will result, as of 31 December 2024, in a cash balance at the State Treasury of just over 40 billion euros, generated however by compulsory insurance premiums owed by employers.
Isn’t the approach with which our country addresses the issues of health and safety in the workplace wrong? Couldn’t some of these resources be used in a structural way? In fact, if it is painful to note that people still die at work today and the numbers of accidents and occupational diseases are so high, it is disconcerting to note that there are so many dedicated resources coming from companies that are not used.
Can we really think that it is possible to contain such phenomena with buffer measures dictated by the emergency moment, such as that of Florence, and not by the identification of structural strategies?
We repeat, a radical change is needed, we need to invest in a culture of safety, starting from schools and not just in the workplace: after the season in which we brought the internet and English to schools, perhaps it is not time to bring the culture of safety there and prevention?”.
