I’m dedicating Christmas Day to the workers who lost their lives in 2011. More than a thousand didn’t come back home to their families. It’s a ceaseless war that has been going on for decades, but seems to be of no interest to anyone. Profit always comes before the safety of the workers. Safety is costly; the death of an employee costs less, and at times, thanks to Italian laws, almost nothing. The relatives of the victims of a sick economy and society will spend their first Christmas without a father, a son, a husband. They are getting my condolences and a hug.

Dear Beppe,
More than 1100 deaths at work in 2011. 15% of these workers were “off the books” or already retired. This is information supplied by Carlo Soricelli’s Osservatorio Indipendente di Bologna {Independent Observatory of Bologna}. Carlo is a retired labourer who does a magnificent job with his blog, kept up to date every day with the deaths at work in Italy. I want to bring to mind what was said by INAIL, that for the year 2010, the number of deaths at work went down for the first time since WWII, to below 1000, and to precisely 980. Evidently there’s something not right about the INAIL figures, and it stems from the fact that they are grossly underestimated, because they don’t take into account the deaths of workers who are “off the books”. There are still too many people that take these figures as the “Gospel truth”. The figures given by the Observatory show that there’s still so much to be done in relation to occupational safety. We are looking at a hecatomb. How can you define a country as civilised with all these deaths at work when article 1 of the Constitution says that “Italy is a democratic Republic founded on work” and not on deaths at work!!! The State, as well as asking us to work until we get old, should be guaranteeing that we get home alive in the evening after a hard day’s work. I’m turning to the Minister of Education, Profumo: do a decree to say that safety at work should be a subject to be taught in schools starting from the next school year, beginning in the elementary schools, as happens in France. I’m turning to Minister Fornero: bring back the regulations for safety at work that the Prodi government brought in with the unified text for occupational safety (Dlgs 81/08) and turned upside down by the former Minister of Labour Sacconi, with Dlgs 106/09 (corrective decree), that among the many negatives halved the penalties for the employers, the directors, the people in charge, and in some cases substituted arrest with a fine and brought in the “salva-manager” {save the manager}. I’m turning to Minister Cancellieri: increase the penalties for those responsible for deaths at work. For the crime of culpable homicide, the penalty goes from 2 to 7 years, but often the employers get away with much lower sentences or with the “Statute of Limitations”. I would like to offer an invitation to the associations, to the trade unions, to the political parties, to the institutions and to the media: stop referring to these deaths using the term “morti bianche” {white deaths} and “tragiche fatalità” {tragic fatalities}. These deaths have nothing to do with the colour white and they are not about fate, but they are due to the failure to respect the regulations for occupational safety.” Marco Bazzoni - metalmechanics labourer and workers’ representative for safety Email: bazzoni_m@tin.it