15 April 2007

Council of Ministers. Accidents at Work

Text:

“It has been a dramatic week as regards international politics, for the happenings in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Less dramatic but equally dangerous is the war within the country that is little talked about but that each day causes victims and injured people: I am referring to those injured at work.
Those who go to work in the morning very often don’t know if they will go home in the evening. You can die from terrorism and you can die directly from work.
It’s happening every day with more than a thousand victims a year.
This is a topic that the Government of which I am a part must face up to, is facing up to and will have to face up to in a really determined way.
A strong attack on black market working has been started: from today it’s no longer possible to be formally employed the day after you start work as was allowed before I and Minister Damiano made alterations to this regulation.
In fact, on many occasions the victim happened to get formally employed on the actual day that they got injured. Now that is no longer possible: first you are formally employed and then you start work.
In the finance law there are new resources available so that new Workplace Inspectors can be take on.
There is the will to face up to this problem but I am not yet satisfied. I say that as a Minister and as a citizen.
The battle will have been won when there are no more victims and to achieve this, regulations are not enough. The regulations established also need to be put into practice. For some time now in our country, democracy is understood as anarchy: do everything you can until it gets discovered and if this happens admit the error. Then with an amnesty and an appeal the problem is resolved.
There must be greater possibility for the Workplace Inspectors to apply sanctions starting from striking someone off a professional body and exacting heavy fines.
In Italy recently there has been a lot of attention given to this topic but we still need to do much more: it’s not enough to state a principle, it needs applying.
Yesterday we talked about another important topic: crimes against the environment. There’s the same problem: everyone talks about respecting the environment but no one really respects the laws, because they are convinced they can find an escape clause if they get caught.
At the Council of Ministers we talked about eco-mafias: there are mafia crimes connected to ecology on topics like disposal of rubbish and water pollution. So we have set out a series of new crimes to protect the environment from the so-called environmental criminality.
The regulation states the principle, but the application is up to the Tribunals, to the Inspectors, to the police forces:
when Italia dei Valori insists that the rule of law is a necessary factor for the development of the economy and the democracy, it is stating the need for the State to function in the interests of the citizens.
Thus our commitment is always the same: certainty of law, certainty of punishment. Without this there is no democracy and there is no healthy economy.”

Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Information