20 September 2006

Safety in the workplace. The silence of the media.

I’m publishing this letter received from a representative of workers for safety in the work place.

“I have decided to write to you to present an issue that is common to most media: there’s very little discussion about safety in the work place.
I just can’t understand why the newspapers give information about deaths in the work place such tiny amounts of space so that if you are not paying attention you miss them, or even worse they don’t report them at all.
This is the reality of most Italian newspapers when discussing these accidents that are very rarely fatalities, but mostly inobservances of the minimum levels of safety rules. . “L’Osservatore Romano” has defined this «slaughter in indifference».

Never were words truer. If we then go and watch the TV. It’s even worse. The only one to talk about this is “Primo Piano”.

According to those directing the TV it’s better to do transmissions (if that’s how they can be defined) like “L’isola dei famosi” {I’m a Celebrity, Get me out of here}, “Grande Fratello” (Big Brother), “la talpa”, “la fattoria”, etc. But real life is different: it is made up of labourers, brick layers, office workers, farm workers etc who go to work in the morning (to earn an honest wage) and they don’t know if they’ll come home in the evening.

This must not happen any more. Before doing the Unified Text for safety at work, the Health Minister Livia Turco should have taken on more personnel in the Work Inspectorate and in the ASLs to do more checks, to sort out and give sanctions to habits of entrepreneurs that lead to the avoidance of the regulations.

We have good laws about safety at work, but it’s useless if there’s no one to check up, because most business people are loathe to put them into practice, as they are considered to be costs. This is why the media should do their part, by starting to put safety at work and black market working (or grey work whatever it is) on the front pages of the newspapers (with big articles).

The media have the moral duty to raise awareness of public opinion on these topics, so as to increase the level of the culture of safety at work among workers and among business people.”
Marco Bazzoni

Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Work