A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria: Esse lungo - Death in subcontracting (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

"And we should also say thank you because they offer work". I was 15 
years old, with the first hint of a beard and a mane of hair that is now 
just a memory. With the 99 Posse I had discovered militancy in music, 
and there was this song, "Povera vita mia", which talked about deaths at 
work. Or Zulu was pretty pissed off in that piece, he didn't even try to 
rap, as if the anger was so much that the words didn't have time to 
rhyme. And I listen to that piece now that I am 38 years old, after the 
massacre at the Esselunga construction site in Florence, which occurred 
on February 16th.
There has been a lot of talk about Esselunga in recent months. The apple 
commercial, how right-wing this supermarket chain is, and then the 
struggle between the patriarch and his son for the management of the 
economic empire. It looks like a TV series, the Italian Succession, say 
those who speak badly and think worse. But then comes the reality check. 
And the reality is that in Florence on February 16th five workers died, 
and indeed this time we noticed it. But only for the extent of the 
tragedy, for its gravity. Not even the industrial decline of the last 30 
years has stopped workplace deaths in Italy. Always three a day, on 
average, since the days of 99 Posse. Always the same horrible statistic. 
Despite the paeans of industrialists and liberal newspapers who believe 
they are independent and instead parrot the litanies of the bosses. You 
can't find people who want to work anymore, they say. Maybe because they 
care more about their own lives than your profit?

This time the large concrete beam falls from a height of 12 meters, 
destroys two attics and buries five people who were working nearby under 
it, injuring three others, it cannot leave anyone indifferent. There is 
also the video after the collapse and, although it was shot after the 
tragedy had occurred, it is already impressive in itself. We should be 
interested in something else, not just the brutal crime scene. And in 
part we manage to talk about it, in what however is the re-presentation 
of stories we have already heard. Just a few new elements, just to give 
the idea that something is moving, that times are changing. In reality, 
it only changes the way workers are killed. The nationality of the dead, 
first of all: a single Italian, three Moroccans and a Tunisian. Even the 
injured are foreigners, Romanians to be precise. Will the thirst for 
profit be able to avoid Italian death in the next round? We just have to 
wait.

And then the other factors, also of an exasperating cynicism. The 
construction of yet another large supermarket, in place of a former 
military bakery. An infinite number of companies, 61, involved in the 
construction site, at up to three levels: contracts, subcontracts and 
subcontracts of subcontracts. The CGIL which speaks of "workers like 
ectoplasms", meaning the hundreds of people who worked without even a 
residence permit, no rights and only exploitation. The ASL which just 
the month before had not detected any anomaly. The involvement of former 
minister Alfano. The probable gangmaster, with the imam of the city 
speaking of workers on the construction site who would have told him 
how, despite having a regular contract, they had to give half of their 
salary to whoever had found the job for them. We care little about the 
responsibility for what happened. Of the work of the judiciary to 
identify criminal responsibilities. Could it have been a manufacturing 
defect or did the error occur in the design or, again, in the 
installation phase? It will end as usual, as always, with the bosses 
getting away with it and a system that will continue undaunted to pursue 
maximum profit on the bodies of those who work. A bit of indignation 
here, the point-based license bullshit for safety there, perhaps a new 
crime to be introduced, murder at work. It would be yet another typology 
introduced by this fascist government, it would be of no use anyway but 
in any case they don't have the courage to even try, it could cause just 
a little annoyance for those who believe that a person's life is not 
worth the cost of a regular hiring and a professional training course, 
and then it is better to leave everything as it is. The dead workers 
don't even deserve a post from Salvini, they were also black, better to 
write about the red-haired tennis player, more German than Italian but 
at least he has light skin.

The writer Alberto Prunetti, son of a worker who died from asbestos 
poisoning and tireless spreader of working class literature, claims to 
have run out of words and then suggests thinking of a new one. 
Operaicide. Bad word, certainly, which starts from the assonance with 
its sister femicide to highlight class extermination. There seems to be 
no before and after, says Simona Baldanzi, also the daughter of a worker 
who worked in a jeans factory. And she's right too, as Alberto has it, 
as perhaps I have it too, the third son of a worker. I always said to my 
father: we'll write for you that you don't want to do it, that you think 
you don't know how to do it, that you don't consider it useful or 
important. I may be a knowledge worker but he will never happen to me to 
be crushed by a beam. And perhaps we were wrong too, we should push you 
to speak up, to say even the most obscene and senseless things. Without 
filters, just the workers and the words. Even when they are racist, 
homophobic, inconclusive and incomprehensible. Taking everything because 
there's nothing left. Only one death in subcontracting.

Andrea Turco

http://sicilialibertaria.it
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