The last two cases, in chronological order, just yesterday. Two seriously injured, prognosis reserved and judicial investigations open to ascertain any responsibilities and negligence. The merciless list of accidents at work is thus updated, with two new stages: Gallipoli And Ottobian. From North to South no difference. In the first case, a 27-year-old worker was injured in the head by a piece of cornice that detached from a building: he was working on scaffolding inside the “Le Fontanelle” residence, on the Marconi seafront in the tourist resort of Salento. In the Pavia area, a 36-year-old laborer suffered some burns after being hit by an electric discharge while he was carrying out maintenance work in a cabin that manages a photovoltaic system.
The figures
Reports of accidents at work presented to INAIL in the first three months of 2024 were 145,130 (+0.4 percent compared to the first quarter of 2023), 191 of which were fatal (-2.6 percent). Occupational diseases are also on the rise. These are provisional data, INAIL always highlights, but the accounting is already alarming.
According to the institute therefore there are 191 deaths in Italy in the first quarter of 2024 against 196 in 2023 but an increase compared to the same period calculated individually over the years from 2019 to 2022. And the data doesn’t agree on this either: illegal work weighs heavily, situations of widespread illegality and lack of social protection have an impact. This is why, for example, according to the CGIL, in the first quarter of 2024 there were as many as 350 deaths due to accidents at work throughout Italy, 12 in Campania while INAIL in its report speaks of 191 cases of reported deaths at work. An endless spoon river. The unions appeal to the government and point the finger at the inadequacy of the regulations in force and focus on the need to stop “the absurd system of cascade procurement which removes responsibility from individual companies and sends the work of the inspectors engaged in the identification of the culprits of this massacre”. Last Thursday two more deaths in the province of Naples, on two construction sites; another person was killed after being crushed by a tractor in Sicily.
Construction and agriculture therefore remain the sectors with the highest incidence of harmful events for workplace safety and workers’ health. This is net of the cases relating to accidents that cause permanent damage, physical problems which then inevitably lead to temporary or permanent disabilities, with very high social costs.
The warning
In recent days it was the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, who called for attention and respect on the issue of workplace safety: «We cannot accept the continuous dripping of deaths, caused by carelessness, imprudence, risks that should not have been taken. A thousand deaths at work in a year represent an unimaginable tragedy. Each of them is unacceptable”, the words of the head of state. Yesterday the Archbishop of Naples, Monsignor, also spoke Mimmo Battaglia with a very harsh analysis, clear and clear concepts: «Work is the most sensitive thermometer of dignity, respect, justice, civil life – he said – Words such as competitiveness, production, profit – warned Don Battaglia – must be accompanied with other words such as solidarity, subsidiarity, dignity of people, to prevent the storm from dragging us away. The time of responsibility is necessary, safety is not a cost, work is life, it is the dignity of the person, if it becomes exploitation it must generate repulsion. These deaths affect everyone, which is why collective awareness is urgently needed for a future worthy of a civilized and modern country. There cannot be work deprived of rights – concluded the Archbishop of Naples – security must not be seen as a cost or a luxury. We are human beings, not spare parts.”
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The morning
