by Marco Olivieri
MESSINA “He looks around and already has no land left to go to. And at eighteen he no longer looks for a job. At eighteen, a job he needs to do. If he looks around and already has no more land to go to”, sang Ivano Fossati in 1988. More than thirty years have passed and the world of work has changed decidedly for the worse and the Messina area is experiencing a profound crisis in the context of a southern issue that has been removed. Messina in crisis, we often headline. Messina identified as a city of renters, of shop closures, of few businesses and of the escape of the new generations, and not only, from a metropolitan reality that offers no prospects.
In the meantime, more than five thousand people from Messina, between the city and the province, are waiting for the Sicilian Region to activate training and work courses, with a 350 euro monthly allowance. And we will never tire of critically observing the choices made by the Meloni government regarding citizenship income and the truly lacking support for those who are weaker on an economic and social level.
In particular, today thinking about May 1st means starting again from our splendid Constitution, which still has much to implement in its objectives. “Italy is a democratic Republic, founded on work. Sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercises it in the forms and within the limits of the Constitution”, we read in article 1. It is no coincidence that President Sergio Mattarella, yesterday in Calabria, highlighted: “Labor Day is a of the Republic, which the constituents wanted to base precisely on work. As the first proponent of this formula, Fanfani, said to the Constituent Assembly, a Republic ‘founded not on privilege, not on the toil of others’ but on everyone’s work. It is a basic element of our democratic identity.”
And again: “It is not just a reference to the values of freedom and equality – added the President of the Republic – but the indication of a living social model, projected towards cohesion and solidarity. A social model capable of removing, over time, the obstacles that take away opportunities from people and prevent the full exercise of rights”. And this is where article 3 comes in: “All citizens have equal social dignity and are equal before the law, without distinction of sex, race, language, religion, political opinions, personal and social conditions. It is the duty of the Republic to remove economic and social obstacles which, by effectively limiting the freedom and equality of citizens, prevent the full development of the human person and the effective participation of all workers in the political, economic and society of the country”.
Messina in crisis and the employment emergency
Mattarella’s words are in line with the values of the Charter, well summarized in this newspaper by the president emeritus of the Constitutional Court Gaetano Silvestri. For some time we have insisted on the need to look reality in the face and address the issue of the economic crisis to the fullest, at all levels – from Europe to national and regional governments, the municipality and the business city, the trade unions and trade associations. and the employment emergency.
Precarious work
The CGIL recently underlined: “Work is precarious and poor. Istat data relating to employment for 2023 indicate an increase in employed people, also due to the increase in assets. There are 176,000 employed people in the Messina area (107,000 men and 69,000 women), 7,000 units more than in 2022. “However, there is no reason to rejoice – observes the secretary of the CGIL Messina, Stefania Radici – because as the INPS Observatory records of new employment relationships, only 13.9% are hired with a permanent contract. 56.5% of new hires in 2023 signed a fixed-term contract, 22.2% had a seasonal contract, 3.1% had an apprenticeship, 2.4% had an intermittent contract and 1.8 % administered. The work that has been created is precarious work, which does not provide the stability to imagine and build autonomous life paths.”
And again: “Work in Messina is a poor job, if we consider that 36.5% of taxpayers have an income from 0 to 10,000 euros. Over half of taxpayers (52.7%) have an income from 0 to 15,000 euros. An economic poverty that often undermines the possibility of having a decent home, a heated or air-conditioned environment, access to care in an increasingly privatized system, the possibility of enjoying cultural and social events, as well as the possibility of guaranteeing study and education for their children”.
The massacre of deaths at work
Another topic that we must not stop insisting on – Politics where are you? – and it is paradoxical and tragic to remember this on May 1st: deaths at work. Notes Mauro Rossato, president of the Workplace Safety and Environment Observatory Vega of Mestre: “At the end of February 2024 there were 119 victims, 19 more than at the end of February 2023. And the increase is more than alarming when we talk exclusively about deaths that occurred at work: +24.7%. As always, in addition to the numbers, what is striking is the higher incidence of mortality among the over 65s and, as has happened in recent years, also the data relating to the incidence of mortality among foreign workers. Even more than double compared to Italians.”
1040 are the official deaths declared by Inail for 2023 in Italy. Officers because let’s not forget that illegal work exists. 12 fell in the Messina area and in 2024 they have already died in the area, while working, Nino Spanò, Mihai Rediu, Salvatore Pipitò. And if “April is the cruelest of all months”, wrote the poet Eliot (“The Waste Land”), how can we forget the explosion in a hydroelectric power plant in the Bologna area? Seven people died and Sinagra paid tribute to Vincenzo Franchina, 35 years old. An industrial electrician, he had become a father a few months ago.
With our hearts also in Portella della Ginestra, where on May 1st 1947 eleven farmers were killed by the Giuliano gang, we do not stop remembering the struggles of workers. And their extraordinary relevance in the era of globalized exploitation and a new economy that often smells of old. So, with the pessimism of reason but the optimism of will, happy May 1st to readers. May this anniversary be a warning and a stimulus to think that another world is possible.
