Safety at work: in Sicily similar to the Middle Ages this morning in Santa Venerina two men, a Sicilian and a Romanian were killed in an explosion in a fireworks factory, while another was injured. We propose again an article on so-called "white deaths" written in early 2009 to be reborn. Since then, things have not changed: Sicily has the record of accidents and deaths at work than the rest of Italy and the province of Catania holds with respect to the other island. Meanwhile, also in the province of Catania, a few days ago a worker was fired, according to the CGIL, but because he had complained about the poor security conditions in the shipyard where he worked.
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seems to get into one of those shrines to war where thousands of names and inscriptions that are chasing you off their breath and give you the chills and dizzy. A string of names. One, two, three a day, sometimes more. And 'Tom died, died Gaius Sempronius, this is dead, dead guy. Every day there is at least in a virtual shrine cadutisullavoro, the blog of a web site whose home page is a red skull full of checkboxes, each of which is a name, a face and age. There also the unknown soldier, "name unknown", it says. It makes an impression age: 31 years, 24 years, 19 years.
Full of Sicily. First earth negative Sicily, where - in contrast to the always too slight decline at national level - the figure for deaths and injuries at work is growing. Over a hundred of those killed in 2008 and already there were about 10 were counted only in the first two weeks of the year just entered: practically less than a day, but still lacked the other in January. The last in order of time is Joseph Gati, 23, died Jan. 31 last struck in Campobello di Licata, Agrigento, walking on an electric light wire found in farmland. Three days before he died two in Caltanissetta, buried by the landslide of a mountain, and another at Gela, the Petrochemical: Salvatore Victorious Ecorigen firm was employed by the maliciousness of the system and exhausting shifts were reported more often by workers. Victorious in 34 years was still precarious and that day the usual eight hours he had added many more: he had entered the factory at 8 am, the explosion that killed him occurred at 21.30. The latest report
Inail on the 2007 and filed only in November 2008, speaks of 35,490 accidents occurred in Sicily: 3.8% national ones and 4% in the previous year, with a particular concentration in the provinces of Palermo, Catania, Messina and Ragusa. Too many, considering that with its 37.2% (always and still only 2007 data, while for 2009 the trade unions provide for the island to a loss of 30,000 jobs), Sicily is among the 12 European regions with the most high unemployment. It is already talk of more than 46,000 accidents (2% more than in 2007) and di102 deaths, 70% of those in industry and services, the budget of 2008 is still provisional, would remain, since many accidents and deaths are not even reported as dead and wounded were insecure or illegal immigrants or illegal workers and disappear into thin air from which they came.
It is said that some years ago, a young Sicilian from illegal duplication of work is dead. He lived in one of the great island city delivering gas cylinders at home from dawn until late evening. But what he earned was not enough to keep the family in black and rounded off the night in the warehouse of a company well known for. One night his heart was broke, I packed and took him away in a hurry, because the inevitable investigation that would otherwise have been open not blacken the respectable name of that company. Officially, the young man was dead in his bed.
And 'one of identified as causes of the disaster by Pino Bello, head of the Department of Health and Safety Regional CGIL, which lists the responsibilities one by one, making no discounts to anyone, not even the union. What we talked about falls within the "employers' liability: there is no respect for the person - he says - or the culture of safety."
But the list is long: it starts with ASL, Lo Bello, recalling that should be "the health authority in charge of preventive medicine and repression." But: you spend "a sea of \u200b\u200bmoney" and "was almost canceled the service of Preventive Medicine and labor." Even in the regional health plan (that, so to speak, waving which the President of the Region, Raffaele Lombardo, medical, and always master of Health Sicilian plays to Robespierre guillotined for his domestic foes, and then the open-power) , according to Bello, does not even mention that 5% of the costs that should be devoted to preventive medicine and the work that signficherebbe - he explains - "human resources, technologies and facilities to ensure visits by at least 20% of companies . Today, it is checked no more than 5-6% and so many companies do not bother to come into compliance because they "are even and odd" and know that there are "few possibility of being penalized. "
Among the responsibilities that identifies the union - and it seems almost a pun - there are those of security officers "often left to themselves, are not properly trained or appointed by the same company, just because the law requires, and forced to pretend that everything is in good standing. " Blackmailed and extorted and they too, like many, influenced by a "total absence of the right to life and health of the workplace". Bello cites the example of "intolerable conditions" of some industrial areas - the petrochemical or serriculture - where you use a high toxic products, but the diseases are not reported "if a small part." Workers most at risk, and often do not appear on the charts, are precarious (ricattatti - he explains - "the eve of the contract of employment or forced to do many more hours" with the result that "the employee may not be so tired warn the risk) and employees of subcontractors: the head of the CGIL Security says that, if the winners of contracts "will probably meet the standards, so it is certainly not for those that are entrusted with the subcontracting: often hard work, performed in the absence of rules and union protection. There, the union is not (and statistically, the union says, "where there is less union there are more injuries") and "the individual worker is not able to counter the employer. But
Bello also wonders if the union actually does everything that you could do: "We're a bit 'distracted - admits - but rather this should be one of our most important roles, and even be the first appearance of salary."
Infinite, then the responsibility of the region. The first complaint Bello shortages of labor inspectorates, which however have powers only with respect to the construction industry: In any case, one of the hardest hit. "Now - he says - have announced that there will be more than 150 new inspectors, but still we're just ads." And we also bring delays and slippages continue to establish the date of submission by employers, document risk assessment: "First - he explains - was to be in January, now said by June, but there ' is a danger of slipping again, it seems that there is real political will, but only crocodile tears scattered right and left. "
addition, due to the lack of prevention, according to the union, there is "a burden of healthcare costs" due to the number of hospital admissions, and to make matters worse, does not even make rehabilitation so that the Inail had to replace the four health facilities and enable services to reduce the time of temporary, "In Sicily - clarifies Bello - we have a temporary disability longer than all of Italy "which involves higher costs and an additional lesion of the right to work. "Every year - complaint - you lose one million six hundred thousand working days and this affects the overall production activities in Sicily."
Then there is the issue of illegal work and illegal, where the security you dreams. According to data from 2007, released last year, companies outside the law - who exploit illegal immigrants and children - are more than 10,500. But the fact is that the Labour Inspectorate, with too few inspectors, has controlled only about 480,000 less than 17,500 in Sicily. Excluding construction sites. And the region, according to Bello, not running the joint committees for the emergence and "does not beat a blow" because "the leader has no experience or trade union or social sensitivity: all languishes in a condition close to the Middle Ages."
And in fact, still complains about the union, "the training was to have a party, we called for, training Safety. " The union called for a minimum of 10% to add that specific targeting to the qualification of the worker. Instead if they are only "hints". Desert absolute
including on regulatory issues. Sicily, which acted as his autonomy as a club, has not been able to enact its own law. The head of the CGIL Security claims that should have been a long time to write a single text of the supplementary law to regulate the training, increase training to encourage the destruction of facilities "obsolete, often due to injuries" but they "are just ads, have no jurisdiction, they do not compare the other regions. " And all this "in the bleak drama of a political framework in which the social representation has failed, the sense of belonging of workers has failed: they vote for those who promise solutions clientelistic or personalistic and so is not the principle of unity of workers ".
Only a few weeks ago, the Regional Department announced that "is developing a draft law on workplace safety, which should be submitted to the Sicilian Regional Assembly in 2009." Slowly, without haste. And in the past ten months, workers will continue to fall in clusters.
