The China Mail - Medieval tower collapse adds to Italy's workplace toll

"Today is a day of pain and anger," said Natale Di Cola, secretary general of the CGIL union in Rome, which organised a torchlight procession Tuesday for the worker killed in Monday's partial collapse of the Torre dei Conti.

A 66-year-old Romanian man, Octav Stroici, died in hospital after being trapped for hours under the rubble of the building, which was being renovated as part of a public project using European Union funds.

An investigation is underway into what happened on the site, in a busy area near the Colosseum, but one of his fellow workers told AFP that the site was "not safe".

In a statement, the CGIL warned it was "a tragedy that requires decisive action from institutions and the corporate world".

Some 575 people have died in workplace accidents in Italy so far in 2025, according to Inail, a public body that manages insurance for such incidents.

Construction and manufacturing were the main sectors affected.

The incident rate is only slightly above the EU average, but the tragedies regularly make the news, appearing from the outside to be the result of mundane mistakes.

The number of workplace deaths "is unacceptable", Pierpaolo Bombardieri, general secretary of the UIL union, told AFP in a recent interview.

On the same day as the Rome tower collapse, four other people died in workplace accidents, according to the CGIL.

These included a 31-year-old who fell while working in a quarry in the Brescia area, and a construction worker, 63, who died nearly two months after an accident near Naples, the union said.

- Government changes -

Last week, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's hard-right government published a new law on workplace safety, after months of talks with trade unions.

The decree introduces a nationwide electronic badge for companies working on construction sites, including subcontractors, boosts inspections and offers financial incentives for firms that reduce accidents.

The UIL union gave it a "positive assessment" but warned this week that "there is still much to be done".

Francesca Re David, confederal secretary of the CGIL union, described the measures as "extremely limited," saying they "do not adequately address the real emergencies".

- 'World collapsed' -

Antonino Ferrara cannot remember his accident, just that he suddenly found his right arm crushed in an aluminium melting press, the artificial fibres in his fleece burning.

"My world collapsed at that moment," the 29-year-old told AFP, recalling the incident at a factory in northern Italy in 2022.

He said he had not received any training, nor was he wearing the right protective clothing at the time.

"I had the interview, they showed me the machinery, and they said, 'See you tomorrow'", he added.

He believes he may have made a mistake, but said an investigation later found there was no safety system in place.

Fabrizio Potetti, regional secretary of CGIL in the region of Lazio, said the biggest issue in workplace safety was the lack of standards among subcontractors.

"If we look at large companies, their accident rate is close to zero, but in the chain of contracts and subcontracts, especially among small and medium-sized firms, that's where accidents happen," he told AFP.

Subcontracting companies, Potetti said, "save on labour costs, on safety, on training".

The UIL union has also pointed to continued issues in subcontracting, and this week said more could be done on improving the quality of training and tackling undeclared work.

"We cannot stop. The lives of workers must be respected and protected, to achieve the only tolerable number -- zero," said UIL confederal secretary Ivana Veronese.

W.Cheng--ThChM