Anyone who knows me, knows that I have a Ghandian spirit. I am a little lamb in amongst wolves. But sometimes even little lambs get angry. In these days of floods in the Veneto region, that seem like a new disaster like the one that happened in Polesine with the only difference being that no one is saying that, and of toxic waste and poisonous truncheon blows in Campania, I have been to Milan. In Piazza del Duomo a gigantic screen told the passers-by: “Whatever kind of work you do it’s your right to go home to your loved ones. And the culture of safety is the best preventative measure against accidents. Follow the rules that protect the most important thing for you and your loved ones: your life.” There were images of husbands getting back home in the evening (they’ve managed to do it again today!) with the yellow helmet nicely visible and the wives anxiously rushing up to embrace them. It’s not a subliminal message, it’s a clear direct message, a rubbish message: “Worker, if you die it’s just your business.” You are like Ambrosoli for Andreotti: "You had it coming!” It’s the campaign for safety at work by the Ministry of Work and Social Policies. The advertising that costs 9 million euro produced by a government that has halved the penalties for employers and for the responsible directors and in some cases it has swapped arrest with a fine by means of the Decree Dlgs 106/09. More than 1,000 people die a year because of accidents at work. A massacre. Anna Di Vitale is one of the thousands of widows of a mass assassination. They kill you, they make laws against and to finish up they take you for a ride with the advertisements. What is worse than killing the father of a family for profit, to save on safety measures? The campaign slogan says "La sicurezza sul lavoro la pretende chi si vuole bene" {To look after yourself, you must insist on safety}. But shouldn’t it be the State that insists on the safety measures?

"My name is Anna Di Vitale. I was married to Giovanni Di Lorenzo, such a gentle lad aged 31, who was always ready to help everyone. It was 26 July in the middle of the summer. My husband left home before 7:00 am, he gave me two kisses that morning, an extra one because it was the feast of my name day. We were planning to meet up at lunch-time. Then he called me at about 10:00 am saying that he wasn’t coming back for lunch as he was having a sandwich there with his colleagues. He explained to me more or less where he was working, but he didn’t tell me that he was driving an excavator. My husband was a lorry driver. Around midday my dad called me and told me that he had received a telephone call whose message was vague and talking about an accident; the first thing I did was to telephone my husband, but no luck it was switched off. I jumped into the car and straight away I feared the worst. After a quarter of an hour I arrived at the place (Baiano-in the province of Avellino). It was a mountain road. I saw the upturned excavator and loads of carabinieri. No one would let me get past. I wanted to see Giovanni, but they said I couldn’t and shouldn’t. At that moment I thought of Carmen our two year old daughter, of his dreams and I just saw nothingness around us.
Three years have gone by. Up until a short while ago, I didn’t want to talk to anyone, the pain was so fierce and it still is. Now I want to talk so that stories like this don’t happen again. I want that a father of a family after a hard day’s work is able to go home to his family. We can no longer let these deaths slide on top of us as though they were simple accidents, They are not “white deaths”, they are “red deaths”, as red as the blood I saw the following day, where my husband died. Three years later there are four people under investigation for culpable homicide, and I don’t understand why it’s necessary to wait so long to have a bit of justice, and why I have to hear the lawyer say to me that I mustn’t expect them to pay by being put in prison. He said to me: "Signora here in Italy they kill people and don’t spend even a day in prison.” I am really getting discouraged even because the hearings are always getting postponed, and meanwhile that company continues working and it’s horrible bumping into them in the street. It’s really horrible for me to know that they are the guilty ones and I cannot do anything.” Anna Vitale Di Lorenzo