New initiatives on health and safety at work

Source: Inail data bank.

In comparative terms, Italy has a very high frequency of occupational accidents and a high work-related mortality rate. The annual average rate of deaths at work in Italy is 5.3 per 100,000 employed workers compared with 4.3 for France, 3.7 for Germany and 1.7 for the UK, according to data from the National Association of Occupational Accident Victims (Associazione nazionale mutilati e invalidi sul lavoro, Anmil).

The human, economic and social costs arising from this poor health and safety record are considerable. Anmil has calculated that each year about 16 million working days are lost due to about 700,000 occupational accidents causing the temporary incapacity of the workers involved. Inail pays out ITL 900 billion (EUR 465 million) per year in occupational illness benefits. Apart from this considerable sum, the damage to companies, the costs sustained by the national healthcare system and the personal damage to families must also be considered. About 30,000 workers per year are involved in accidents at work which cause permanent injuries, costing more than ITL 200 billion (EUR 103 million) in lifelong benefit payments.

Occupational health and safety in Italy is regulated by law no. 626 of 1994, which transposed various European Union Directives on the subject. The law establishes that each company is responsible for safety measures within its own plant. The law also establishes the position of workplace occupational health and safety representative (Rappresentante dei lavoratori per la sicurezza, Rls) as well as territorial-level representatives (Rlst s), responsible for monitoring the application of health and safety regulations. Rlss are elected in companies during the elections for representatives on general workplace employee representative structures (Rsu s).

The causes

There are many causes behind accidents at work, including: failures on the part of employers; the carelessness of workers caused by familiarity with their work and an underestimation of risks; and a lack of control by institutions such as the labour inspectorate and local health and safety units. The latter complain about a lack of personnel qualified to judge the degree of danger of some new manufacturing processes. There is arguably a general climate which seems to consider occupational risks to be unavoidable, which inevitably leads to an increase in the number of accidents. Other reasons put forward for the poor health and safety situation include the following:

• the spread of illegal, clandestine work in the Italian economy, along with the mechanism of public and private tenders, is thought to play a role. Contracts are awarded to those who offer to supply the work concerned at the lowest possible price. Contractors, in order to keep their costs low, use a chain of subcontractors which in turn use irregular workers, thus cutting health and safety costs;

• various new substances introduced recently in the industrial and agricultural sectors, many of which are suspected to be toxic, also cause occupational ill-health and accidents. Furthermore, the extensive use of new technologies and VDU screens may, it is thought, have increased the extent of visual damage;

• among the causes highlighted by trade unions are stress linked to the pressure caused by increased productivity, greater competition among employees, and bullying at the workplace which decreases the traditional solidarity among workers; and

• last but not least, there is also perceived to be a widespread sense of insecurity generated by new forms of flexible work which make the employment relationship temporary, thus obliging workers to change job very frequently and to underestimate the sources of risk.

Government initiatives

In May 2000, the cabinet approved, on the basis of a proposal from the Minister of Labour, Cesare Salvi, a "plan for occupational health and safety". The aim of this plan is to "promote accident prevention measures, to support companies that invest in safety measures (...) and to coordinate the monitoring of activities". An interministerial committee, chaired by the Minister of Labour, will coordinate activities and work with the regions to develop common action strategies.

The plan consists of three types of measure:

1. safety at the workplace. There will be two kinds of intervention in this area. First, an "occupational health and safety culture" will be promoted through computer-based information and campaigns by all the institutions and bodies (including those at provincial level) involved in the fight against the illegal economy. Second, working conditions will be improved through incentives for companies which adopt health and safety measures;

2. monitoring. The plan will ensure the coordination of all monitoring bodies in this area, "using all the available resources and rationalising the activities of the various organisations"; and

3. contracts. To eliminate the risks related to calls for tenders which tend to reduce the costs of contracts, the plan invites all public administrations to take into consideration, when evaluating bids, the costs that each prospective contractor foresees for health and safety.

The government has allocated ITL 600 billion (EUR 310 million) for prevention, reconversion of obsolete plants and the training of workers. One of the government initiatives was to organise a national assembly of labour inspectors. This was personally promoted by the Minister of Labour and took place on 20 October 2000 in Rome.

Trade union initiatives

On 22 September 2000, the three main trade union confederations - Cgil, Cisl and Uil- organised a first national assembly of Rls workplace health and safety representatives in Modena- an initiative welcomed by the representatives. The final document approved by the meeting stated the urgent "need to relaunch a trade union strategy concerning occupational health and safety and prevention".

The three union confederations have also drawn up a "plan for occupational health and safety and for safer jobs". The unions intend to pursue the following actions:

1. reasserting workers' participation in health and safety, which they claim has often been hindered by companies, in order to guarantee the role and the work of Rls representatives and of the joint committees responsible for monitoring the application of occupational health and safety regulations;

2. giving more attention in collective bargaining to issues such as work organisation within companies, the division of productive cycles (though contracting-out) and the management of flexibility with regard to employment relationships and working conditions ("atypical" work, part-time work etc); and

3. pressing the government for new preventive policies, health protection and monitoring.

For the unions, safety in particular must have an important role within collective bargaining. Alongside company bargaining, there should be inter-company or local bargaining "for sectors and areas with high risks or characterised by micro companies". Rls representatives should be involved in the process of risk evaluation from the beginning. In order to achieve this, safety training for Rlss and workers will be strengthened. With regard to the award of contracts, the unions will coordinating the action of those responsible for safety in the organisations putting work out to tender, and those responsible in the contracting companies. Moreover, unions want to increase the number of Rls representatives, who are seen as "the only possibility of protecting workers in sectors characterised by micro companies and highly dispersed work".

The unions' plan is also addressed to the public authorities and calls for the creation of a single general directorate of health and safety within one ministry. National-level competences for occupational health and safety matters, which are currently distributed among several ministries, should be concentrated in this general directorate. Furthermore, the unions want the authorities to guarantee the presence of Rls and Rlst representatives and to reduce compulsory accident insurance contributions, managed by Inail, for those companies that apply the provisions of law 626 no. on employee participation in health and safety.

On 16-22 October 2000, on the occasion of the European Week for Safety and Health at Work, the three trade union confederations called a general strike of 15 minutes to support the proposals in their plan. The strike was widely supported

Luigi Angeletti, the Uil general secretary, admitted that trade unions have long underestimated the problem of occupational safety. He also declared that fatalities at work do not happen by chance but because of erroneous company priorities. The importance of training was highlighted by Giorgio Santini, confederal secretary at Cisl, who said: "we must promote a new culture of working life, starting with training. It is therefore necessary to make people understand that safety cannot only be considered as a factor which increases labour costs."

The Minister of Labour stressed the determination of the government to deal with the problem of occupational accidents and has guaranteed that 1,000 new labour inspectors will be hired in 2001 in order to strengthen controls, a very important aspect of the fight to combat this problem.

Commentary

Occupational accidents can be seen as an "undeclared war against workers". Trade union organisations, employers' associations and the government have now agreed to eliminate a "plague" which causes misery and mourning in families. The social cost of occupational accidents is tremendously high. The strategy which social partners are adopting is based on the development of concertation and negotiation. Nationally, this strategy has led to the creation of a joint body which will deliver training on health and safety issues to company technical staff and workers' safety representatives. At company and local levels, many agreements have started to take into account the subject of occupational health and safety. A recent example comes from Milan, where the social partners have established a provincial joint committee with the following tasks:

1. gathering and interpreting the data relating to the health and safety situation;

2. organising initiatives aimed at raising the awareness of workers and companies on this issue;

3. planning and implementing joint initiatives on training and information;

4. taking a joint approach to public bodies in order to improve the efficacy of the work of the agencies responsible for controlling health and safety and working conditions and for the application of the relevant rules

The common belief at the basis of these initiatives is that workers' safety is an important element in a civilised society and a value which must be protected by both companies and trade unions. It is to be hoped that these joint initiatives will bring the Italian rate of occupational accidents down to the European Union average. (Domenico Paparella, Cesos)