Around 200 cardboard coffins were placed in Piazza della Signoria in Florence, in front of Palazzo Vecchio, to commemorate the victims at work in Tuscany in recent years and ask for incisive measures for safety in the workplace. It is the initiative organized by Uil “Zero Deaths at Work”.
The flash mob in the square, in front of the arengario of Palazzo Vecchio, was attended among others by the general secretary of Uil Toscana Paolo Fantappiè, the national Uil organizational secretary Emanuele Ronzoni, the mayor of Florence Dario Nardella and Emma Marrazzo, Luana’s mother D’Orazio, the young woman who died at work in 2021. At the beginning, a student read the names and stories of some victims at work, then left room for interventions. “This was sent to my home from my daughter – said Marrazzo, showing a shoe worn by her daughter on the day of the accident in a company in Montemurlo (Prato) – and my daughter went to work in one piece. My daughter did four spins on that roller and her shoe flew off. I’m not into manslaughter and that’s it, I’m not into it. The company is working, it didn’t close even on the day of the funeral and it was regional mourning. Now as a gesture – she continued – I will carry this shoe on one of these coffins that are empty, but unfortunately they have been filled and some didn’t even have that because they had to look for the pieces”. Luana’s mother then placed, as a symbolic gesture, her daughter’s shoe on one of the coffins located in Piazza della Signoria.
Ronzoni said that “we will not finish carrying out our commitment, ‘Zero deaths’ is the campaign we have chosen as Uil because this is our objective. Seeing these coffins here in this square in a symbolic way must inspire an act of responsibility in each of us, in political forces, in public opinion. A large part of those coffins and deaths depended on irresponsible acts.” Fantappiè then recalled that “in Tuscany we recorded 51 deaths in 2023 and in these months we are recording an increase of 4.3% compared to the previous year and 6.8% compared to the same months of 2023 in workplace complaints. It is an endless massacre that starts from Via Mariti but which continued until yesterday in the Palermo area. We say enough, we wait for the government to summon us, what else so tragic has to happen to find the solutions that we as Uil have proposed”. Nardella finally spoke of a “count that never ends, unbearable, unacceptable. First via Mariti, then Suviana, then Palermo, these things are incomprehensible, we are truly tired of listening only to words, the relatives of the victims are tired, and all those who are fighting for a battle of civilization. The coffins that are here in Piazza della Signoria are a very strong and unequivocal image, it is a way of saying enough is really enough”
