Just die at work. Metalworkers strike throughout Italy on Wednesday 21 September. The general secretaries of Fim, Fiom and Uilm, Marco Bentivogli, Maurizio Landini and Rocco Palombella, released a joint statement today. Here is the text:
“Thursday the tragedy of Piacenza in a logistics company. On Saturday, within a few hours of each other, the deaths of a worker at Ilva in Taranto and that of a worker at Atac, the Roman transport company.
Since the beginning of the year, 500 workers have died while working. It is an unacceptable figure, which represents a dramatic situation. These deaths are never the consequence of fatality but always of the companies' lack of respect for safety procedures and rules and, in general, of the inadequacy of prevention systems such as to ensure effective guarantees for workers.
This reality is the consequence of a climate and behaviors that evaluate life and work and the conditions in which it takes place as variables dependent on the interests of the company and profit.
Subcontracting and job insecurity worsen working conditions and increase pressure on individual workers.
For metalworkers, a national contract that addresses these issues means putting a stop to this situation because workers are made stronger in defending their rights and a shared and widespread culture of safety. Fim, Fiom, Uilm reconfirm their commitment to guaranteeing safe work with rights and declare their opposition to any intervention that worsens safety standards.
For all of these reasons, the national Fim, Fiom and Uilm proclaim an hour's strike for Wednesday 21 September and invite their structures and the union representatives to hold assemblies in all workplaces.
A worker's right to life is an absolute good that no one can cancel”.
