Trentino: A 25-year-old man was crushed to death by a steel girder while engaged in construction work in Trentino, marking the latest in a series of accidental workplace fatalities in Italy that has prompted government intervention.
According to Ansa News Agency, Premier Giorgia Meloni announced that her government is allocating 650 million euros in new funding to enhance workplace health and safety measures ahead of the May Day national holiday. In an interview with Corriere della Sera, Meloni expressed that “it is unacceptable that every day is punctuated by deaths and injuries.”
The government recently met with trade unions to address the pressing issue of health and safety in the workplace. The workplace accident insurance agency, INAIL, reported that work-related deaths have increased by 8.37% to 205 in the first quarter of the year.
Daniela Fumarola, leader of the CISL trade union, emphasized that workplace safety should be the “first commandment” of a new labor “pact” involving businesses, unions, and public institutions. Maurizio Landini, leader of the CGIL trade union, described the situation as a “massacre, not an emergency,” criticizing the current business model where “profit counts, not the person.”
Landini further stated, “The person has become a machine that can be bought and sold, a price to pay to this model. It is clear that a model of doing business, of running the market, should be changed. The person should go back to being central, and a series of measures that are not being taken are needed.”
