To cover an area of almost 26 thousand square kilometers, 400 thousand businesses and 5 million inhabitants, just 68 labor inspectors are on duty. «And instead in Sicily there should be at least 280 – denounces Paolo D’Anca, secretary of the regional Filca Cisl – Also because construction is the third largest industry on the island together with tourism and agriculture». In a nutshell, on the control front there is only 20 percent of the necessary staff. The rest are not hired for reasons that make us even more angry in the face of yet another workplace tragedy, the one that occurred yesterday in Casteldaccia, in the Palermo area, where five workers died. In the meantime, we have to deal with the obstacles to the normal carrying out of bureaucratic processes linked to the long-standing conflicts between the powers of the central State and the competences of the autonomous Region par excellence. Unlike in the rest of Italy, the inspectors must be recruited by Palazzo d’Orleans, which has full powers in matters of workplace safety, but not the money to pay their salaries. In fact, the last ones added to the workforce, around thirty, were sent from Rome, by the Ministry of Labour, after a specific agreement between the parties.
In this cahiers de doleances, therefore, the malaburocracy, the lack of funds and the hiring freeze at the regional plant in force for at least a decade to recover the 5 billion debts are on full display. And when all these problems were bypassed with the close agreement with the ministry led by Marina Calderone, at Palazzo d’Orleans we also had to face the difficulties in identifying the contract to be applied to these workers: they should obtain the status of officials, but to get it they would first have to participate in a public competition.
Workers killed at work, from Casteldaccia to Suviana: over 350 victims since the beginning of 2024. All of the above
ORLEANS PALACE
It is no coincidence that yesterday, from Palazzo d’Orleans, the councilor for Labor Nuccia Albano announced: «It is a moment of pain, we want to be close to the families who have suffered this tragedy, to give them support. We will strengthen the team of labor inspectors. 35 arrived last year, another 35 are to arrive and I am working to hold a competition for over 100 labor inspectors. Now we must be close to the children, wives and parents of the victims.” In the meantime, however, the controversy on this front is mounting at the moment. «Also because – continues D’Anca – we are faced with a surreal, if not trivially ridiculous, situation. To understand how intricate it is, it must be said that the inspectors sent by Rome, and who are in all respects employees of the National Labor Institute, could not legally operate, because in Sicily the competence on this matter lies with the Region”. Either this body takes them on permanently or their prescriptions could also be questioned and rejected due to a formal flaw.
In this scenario, it should not be surprising either that in Sicily there is no Inspectorate office or that only three or four inspectors operate in the Palermo area and just one in Ragusa. To overcome this situation, in 2022, the Sicilian council began to negotiate with the Ministry of Labor to obtain personnel for checks. It took a year and finally an agreement was reached: the INL – as happened at the beginning of 2024 – would send its staff to the island, they would pay them their salaries, then asking them to keep the entity for themselves of sanctions. But once they arrived in Sicily these inspectors not only had to manage an indescribable backlog of paperwork: they discovered that they could not follow refresher courses precisely because they were not direct employees of the Region led by Renato Schifani. It is no coincidence that in recent months, Minister Calderone made it known after a parliamentary question that she was ready to send other inspectors to the island, but that she had not received responses from the local authorities.
THE TABLE
In Italy, last year, 1,041 unrelated deaths were recorded. About ninety in Sicily alone, which unlike other regions has not seen a drop in the number of victims. This is also why the Ministry of Labor and the construction trade unions have decided to speed up the drafting and approval of the delegated decrees to unblock the latest measures desired by the government to expand safety on construction sites, mostly included in the latest Pnrr package: the hiring of 875 inspectors including INL employees and carabinieri (on this front we await the approval of the Accounting Office for the necessary funds), the credit license which in the private sector prevents non-virtuous companies from participating in the procurement system, the There is also an obligation for subcontracted companies to hire workers under the construction contract in addition to a system of sanctions that is more severe than in the past. A series of rules that should be operational from October, but which the parties hope to bring forward.
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