Catanzaro – On the World Day for Health and Safety at Work which is celebrated today, eyes focused on the data relating to the last year and which – based on the study carried out by the Vega Engineering Occupational Safety Observatory of Mestre – see Calabria relegated in the “red zone” – Ending up in the red zone at the end of 2023, with an incidence higher than +25% compared to the national average (Im=Average incidence index, equal to 34.6 workplace deaths per million workers) are : Abruzzo, Umbria, Basilicata, Puglia, Molise, Campania and Calabria. In the orange zone: Sicily and Emilia-Romagna. In the yellow zone: Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Marche, Piedmont, Veneto, Sardinia, Lombardy, Liguria and Trentino-Alto Adige. The safest regions, in the white zone, are: Lazio, Tuscany and Valle d’Aosta.
“It is an important day to reflect on the daily tragedy of deaths at work. A precious opportunity for reflection for trainers, corporate safety managers and employers. To introduce into the daily productive life of our country all the procedures useful for the prevention of serious and fatal accidents”. Mauro Rossato, president of the Observatory, who has been at the forefront of worker safety in Italy for three decades, underlines the value of April 28th. And he launches an appeal to all those who deal with security in our country.
“We cannot reach the end of each year always counting over a thousand victims – Rossato insists – and with a mortality rate that remains practically unchanged in the last two years. It is not possible to see how workers are always protagonists of the same tragedies. Because there is well-structured legislation in our country to prevent accidents. It would be enough to apply it in a more widespread way.” A dramatic situation for our peninsula, confirmed by the most extensive and recent statistical analysis of the Mestre Observatory. “There are no words to comment on a situation that shows no signs of changing despite the greater prominence given to these tragedies by institutions and the media but, on the contrary, according to the data, in 2023 accidents at work increased by 1.1% compared to 2022 – explains Rossato – and this means that workers are not sufficiently protected in their daily working lives. On the other hand, there is a significant decrease in fatal commuting accidents compared to 2022 (-19.3%), probably a consequence of the greater use of smart working in these post-pandemic years. A comforting result, certainly, but which cannot be identified with an improvement in the safety conditions of workers in our peninsula”. “Among other things, unfortunately – adds the President of the Mestre Observatory – we are aware of how many other deaths are left out of this dramatic toll. Those who belong to the underground economy.”
With a view to a more virtuous reflection and truly capable of directing the country towards a reversal of course, the Vega Engineering Workplace Safety Observatory of Mestre has been processing for years the real risk of death of workers, region by region and province by province . “This is the mortality incidence index, i.e. the ratio of fatal accidents to the regional and provincial working population, whose average in Italy at the end of 2023 is 34.6 deaths per million employed (35 in 2022) . – says the President of the Mestre Observatory – This value, a true “indicator of risk of death at work”, allows the accident phenomenon to be compared even between regions with a different number of workers. Based on the incidence of fatal accidents, the Vega Observatory defines on a monthly basis the zoning of the risk of death for workers in our country which is thus described – like the pandemic – dividing Italy in colour”.
“And then there is an emergency which in recent years has become increasingly clear in our calculations, that is, that which affects foreign workers, subject to a risk of fatal injury more than double that of Italians. Thus the foreigners who died on the occasion of work from January to December 2023 are 155 out of 799. With a risk of death at work that is more than double that of Italians; there are 65.3 deaths per million employed, compared to the 31.1 Italians who lose their lives during work for every million employed”. “At the same time, injury reports (fatal and non-fatal) decreased by 16.1% compared to 2022, but the decreases are due to the end of the Covid emergency which had instead ‘inflated’ the 2022 data. (These and many other data are freely available on the Mestre Observatory website www.vegaengineering.com).
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
