Three workers are dead, three are
injured but not in a life threatening condition and two are
missing feared dead after a structural collapse in a Florence
supermarket construction site on Friday that put the spotlight
back on work safety in Italy amid an ongoing spate of
fatalities.
Most of the victims were said to be Romanians.
The collapse occurred Friday morning at a construction site in
Florence, in Via Mariti, on the outskirts of the city, where an
Esselunga supermarket is being built, after a retaining wall
reportedly collapsed.
Maurizio Landini, head of Italy's biggest and most leftwing
trade union federation CGIL, pointed the finger at the
government saying it had seen 1,000 workers die on the job last
year and had nonetheless reintroduced allegedly unsafe
sub-contracting.
"In 2023 there were 1,000 deaths at work and often these
accidents are produced by the system of subcontracting and the
logic of tenders at the highest price," said the CGIL leader.
"I want to recall that it was this government that amended the
procurement code and reintroduced the subcontracting cascade",
he said.
"It is necessary for there to be an immediate reaction and I
also think it is necessary to arrive at a general initiative
next week, which I will also propose to the other unions,
because it is no longer acceptable to continue dying at work."
The ruling rightwing League party hit back saying that Landini's
words were "disgusting" and that the government had been forced
to reintroduce sub-contracting by a threat of infringement
proceedings from the European Commission.
"The words of Maurizio Landini, who comments on the accident at
work in Florence also blaming the new procurement code, are
disgusting: the secretary of the CGIL ignores that the new rules
were wanted by Europe, so much so that Italy was at risk of
infringement, and that they have nothing to do with the
tragedy," read a League statement.
"The ideological hatred of the CGIL does not stop even in the
face of tragedies," said the second biggest member of Giorgia
Meloni's government.
The general secretary of CISL, Italy's second biggest trade
union, Luigi Sbarra, said that "the massacre must end",
referring to the spate of fatal workplace accidents in Italy
which has continued despite several governments' efforts to stem
it.
"The tragedy at the Florence construction site is a chilling
event," he said.
"We are close to the families of the victims and the injured.
"But condolences and solidarity are not enough.
"The massacre must end.
"While waiting for the judiciary to shed light on the dynamics
and responsibilities, one thing is certain: safety in the
workplace and safeguarding the lives of workers must be placed
at the top of the country's priorities," Sbarra added.
CGIL and UIL, the third of the Big Three unions, called a
two-hour nationwide strike next Wednesday to protest workplace
accident deaths.
The federations, together with the categories of construction
and metalworkers - Fillea-Cgil, Feneal-Uil, Fiom-Cgil and
Uilm-Uil - invited all other categories to plan mobilisation
initiatives and assemblies in workplaces on the same day.
They called the latest disaster "yet another unbearable tragedy
of death at work".
Sbarra's CISL announced an ongoing national mobilisation and
called on the government to reopen talks on how to stop the
"slaughter".
"The Florence tragedy is the umpteenth event in a massacre that
must end and which despoils even the most elementary
Constitutional rights," said leader Sbarra, announcing
assemblies in factors, work sites and offices across the
country.
"We must stop the trail of blood and we must do so now," he
said. "The government must immediately restart talks with the
unions to build a national strategy together with the employers
associations".
Labour Minister Marina Calderone said the government is weighing
more measures on the phenomenon.
Calling the disaster a "terrible tragedy," she said: "Through
the staff of the National Labour Inspectorate and the
Carabinieri of the Labour Protection Command present on site in
support of the judicial authority, I am following the rescue
operations and the search for the missing in order to shed light
on what has happened and to take any further action necessary
with respect to what has been done so far".
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on social media: "On my own
behalf and on behalf of the Government, I express my condolences
for the victims of the collapse of a girder on a building site
in Florence.
"I follow with apprehension the evolution of the situation and I
thank all those who are participating in the search for the
missing and in the rescue operations for the injured.
"Our deepest condolences to the families affected by this
terrible tragedy".
President Sergio Mattarella sent his condolences, Florence
Mayor Dario Nardella said.
"I give my heartfelt thanks to President Mattarella for voicing
to me on the phone his closeness and condolences for the tragedy
at the Florence building site," Nardella said on X.
"I have proclaimed city mourning for tomorrow with a suspension
of all events."
Nardella, who is in Israel on a visit, said "I will bring
forward my return from the Holy land with the first flight I can
get on to".
The Italian victim was named as Luigi Coclite, born in Teramo in
Abruzzo in 1964 and resident at Vicarello, a suburb of
Collesalvetti near Livorno.
The identity of the other certified victim, whose body has not
yet been recovered from the rubble of the building, has not yet
been revealed.
Neither have the identities of the three workers who are still
being sought in the debris.
The three injured workers, in Florence's Careggi Hospital in a
non life threatening condition, all come from Romania and are
aged 37,48 and 51.
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