Workplace deaths 'offend collective conscience'- Mattarella

(ANSA) - ROME, SEP 12 - President Sergio Mattarella on Thursday said in a message for the presentation of a report by the parliamentary inquiry commission on labour conditions in Italy following the deadly railway incident of Brandizzo on August 30 last year that workplace deaths and accidents are an "intolerable offence for the collective conscience". "Security on the job is the necessary condition to make effective the fundamental and inalienable right to health that cannot find limits in the lack or inadequacy of appropriate measures to make jobs and the workplace healthy and devoid of dangers.
    "The commitment for this end of institutions and social representatives will never be sufficient", concluded the president.
    Five track maintenance workers lost their lives in the rail accident at Brandizzo near Turin.
    The two survivors of the accident - the foreman of the team of workers employed by a contractor and the Italian rail company RFI employee responsible for the worksite - are among 15 put under investigation by prosecutors in Ivrea in connection with the incident.
    One of the key issues probed is why work was allowed to begin before there was confirmation that traffic on the line had been halted, as well as the implementation and respect of security procedures for workers.
    Sources say investigators believe work started even though the RFI employee was denied the all-clear for it to begin in three phone calls with network officials. (ANSA).