Every workplace accident death is
unacceptable, President Sergio Mattarella said in a speech in
Calabria marking Wednesday's Labour Day holiday on Tuesday amid
a spate of such deaths that has reaped over 125 lives so far
this year, and around 1,000 last year.
"We cannot accept the continuous trickle of deaths, caused by
carelessness, by recklessness, by risks that should not have
been taken," said the president on the spate that included seven
workers killed in a hydro power plant blast near Bologna earlier
this month.
"One thousand deaths at work in a year represents an
unimaginable tragedy.
"Every one of these is unacceptable".
Mattarella also appealed against the continuous exploitation of
migrant workers by gang masters, mainly in the south of Italy
where foreign farm labourers toil on starvation wages picking
crops for unscrupulous organisations including the Mob.
He said: "In the agricultural supply chain, the issue of
migration is of great importance.
"Migrant workers are an essential part of agricultural
production and the subsequent processing of its products.
"But, in some cases, grey areas of labour - bordering on
illegality, exploitation or even taking advantage of it -
generate injustice and, in addition, insecurity, tensions,
conflicts.
"And they provide space for criminal organisations.
"Vigilance is, therefore, a precise duty.
"On the criminal forms of 'caporalato' (gangmastering).
"On the inhuman conditions in which, in some cases, seasonal
workers are thrown, sometimes without name or identity".
The Italian president also appealed not to worsen the
north-south gap amid government plans for 'differentiated
autonomy' that critics say would cause just that.
"The development of the Republic needs the revival of the
Mezzogiorno," said Mattarella.
"It is right to emphasise how a balanced and quality growth of
the South of Italy ensures great benefit to the entire national
territory.
"A separation of the roads between territories in the North and
territories in the South would cause serious damage to one and
the other," he said to loud applause.
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