“There are no words to comment on this episode. We need inspection activities in the workplace to be supported by intelligence activities, with the cross-referencing of information already contained in the databases available to local administrations”. The director of Labor and Welfare Policies of Confagricoltura, Roberto Caponi, comments on the death of Satnam Singh with Roberto Vicaretti on Filo Diretto, on Rainews 24.
Singh, a 31-year-old laborer of Indian nationality, had injured himself with a plastic roller wrapper towed by a tractor in the Latina countryside. The machinery had severed his arm and the entrepreneur for whom he was working, instead of alerting emergency services, carried him to the front door of his house and left him there with the limb placed in a vegetable box. The man is now accused of manslaughter, hit-and-run and violation of safety regulations.
“Everyone’s collaboration is necessary – continues Caponi –. Trade organisations, businesses, trade unions and supervisory bodies must work together to ensure that the resources dedicated to inspections are not wasted in the search for small bureaucratic loopholes but rather concretely prevent and censor the phenomenon of undeclared work. The worker who died in Latina is one of the many foreign people who have been present on Italian territory for years and who have been employed for years without a contract,” he adds.
For the director of the Confederation’s Labor area, the poor application of the rules is also an accomplice to the phenomenon of exploitation in the fields. “There are many laws in Italy both against gangmastering and on the protection of workers. But they must be respected.” Confagricoltura has been committed to these issues for some time. “We recently renewed, together with the other acronyms and unions, the contracts of primary sector employees. These are 40 thousand people whose economic treatment has been improved. We are now working on the renewal of provincial employment contracts and the objective is to increase protections.”
