The Senate on Tuesday OK'd a bill to
teach workplace safety amid a long spate of fatal workplace
accidents in Italy.
Workplace accident deaths were up 3.2% to 577 in the first
seven months of 2024, workplace accident insurance agency INAIL
said a month ago.
Premier Giorgia Meloni recently announced that the government
has approved the recruitment of 1,600 new labour inspectors,
amid an alarm about the spate of workplace deaths in Italy.
Concern has been heightened by the June death of Satnam Singh,
an off-the-books 31-year-old Indian farm labourer who bled out
after being dumped outside his hut with an arm severed by
wrapping machinery placed beside him on a fruit picking box at
Latina south of Rome.
Five men died after inhaling toxic gas in a sewer network near
Palermo in May, and seven died in a hydro power plant blast near
Bologna in April.
Meanwhile there has been a steady stream of more than daily
individual deaths.
On Tuesday the Senate approved, in the drafting stage, with 76
yes votes, no votes against and 54 abstentions, the bill for
teaching workplace safety as part of civic education.
The text, which had already received the green light from the
Lower House but will have to return there because the provision
in the Senate was partially corrected, aims to ensure the
dissemination in schools of basic knowledge of labor law and
workplace safety, "also through the testimonies of accident
victims", to contribute "to forming citizens aware of workers'
rights, duties and protections".
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