ROMA – We are talking about safety at work again, after the tragedy in Florence. Here are the points being discussed these days.
The government is absent on security issues, the last meeting convened dates back to July, say the leaders of CGIL and UIL, Landini and Bombardieri.
Real. The Minister of Labor Marina Calderone convened the social partners on the topic of workplace safety for the first time in mid-January 2023 and then in July. No decision resulted. Only the announcement of an unspecified “security reform”.
Calderone: “More controls”. But a thousand inspectors are missing. And hiring is slowing down by Valentina Conte 19 February 2024
Minister Calderone talks about 850 new technical inspectors hired last year which will allow inspections to be increased this year by 40%, bringing them to 100 thousand.
It is not so. The technical inspectors hired last year were 662. And they are part of the hiring contingent of 1,149 technical units put up for competition in 2022 by the Draghi government and the then Minister of Labor Andrea Orlando. Already in 2022 there had been 100 thousand inspections, if we consider those carried out by all inspectors: from the ministry and from INPS and INAIL. The share of ministerial inspectors alone was 78 thousand.
How can inspections be increased?
The director of the National Labor Inspectorate (INL) Paolo Pennesi supports the principle of “short access”: a type of control only per visit. For example, only work contracts or the regularity of scaffolding. In this way the “access” count could rise significantly, given short checks during the day. But inspections of large construction sites, for example like the one in Florence, count for one (only one access), but can last for weeks or even months.
Is the tragedy in Florence a consequence of Salvini’s procurement code?
No, because the Code concerns public procurement and as such does not apply to the private construction site in Florence. However, it is true that Minister Salvini has taken the most harmful rule of the private sector – cascade subcontracting without limits – and extended it to the public sector.
Another amnesty appears in the Calderone decree on safety and the fight against black crime by Valentina Conte 18 February 2024
Salvini says the new rules on cascade subcontracting are imposed by Europe.
Real. EU directives provide for this, under penalty of risk of infringement. The Draghi government was the first to include it in the text of the new Procurement Code, a key reform of the Pnrr. But Draghi had foreseen a limit that was no longer a percentage, but a quantity limit: “the main execution of the works” cannot be subcontracted (article 119 first paragraph). At the same time, however, it prohibited the subcontracting of subcontracting, that is, the second level of subcontracting. Salvini holds the first roof, but blows up this ban.
Why are the unions asking to abolish cascade subcontracting?
Because the rule actually legitimizes the further subcontracting of subcontracting in public construction too. We move from the first and only subcontract to “without limits”, as in private construction. The long and fragmented chain of subcontractors that is created to achieve economies of scale becomes an incentive to “empty boxes”, to companies that exist only on paper. And above all it makes it complicated, if not impossible, to comply with health and safety regulations in the workplace, as well as the application of construction contracts. In a country where three workers die on average every day.
Genoese: “I challenge the prime minister: extend the same protections as public works to the private sector” by Valentina Conte 18 February 2024
What are the proposals in place to change this picture?
Minister Calderone says she is not hostile to the idea of introducing the crime of “murder at work”. But up to now her action has never had a profound impact on the issue of security. The secretary of the Democratic Party Elly Schlein made her the proposal launched on Republic by the general secretary of Fillea CGIL Alessandro Genovesi. And that is to do the opposite of what Salvini did. That is, extending the good things in the Public Procurement Code to the private sector. That is: all the protections during the execution of the works. The obligation to apply the construction contract, avoiding using contracts that cost less and with fewer protections. The downward ban on labor and safety costs. And economic and regulatory equality between contracted and subcontracted workers.
Labor inspectors: “In deaths there is no fatality, but only violated rules” by Valentina Conte 18 February 2024