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CLIMATE CRISIS

Italian factories on strike over extreme heat after worker dies

Italian factory workers have launched a strike after a man died while working at a automotive manufacturing plant outside Turin on Thursday.

Published: 22 July 2022 17:22 CEST
A worker operates machinery at a factory in Trezzano sul Naviglio, near Milan, Northern Italy, on June 25, 2021.
A worker operates machinery at a factory in Trezzano sul Naviglio, near Milan, Northern Italy, on June 25, 2021. Photo by MARCO BERTORELLO / AFP.

The man, 61, fell unconscious and hit his head while performing routine tasks, according to La Stampa news daily. Efforts by colleagues to revive him with a defibrillator were unsuccessful.

The official cause of death is currently being investigated by police, but with temperatures pushing 40 degrees Celsius in parts of the country, heat exhaustion is thought likely to be responsible.

Factory workers from the local area organised an eight-hour picket on Friday outside the Dana Graziano plant in Rivoli where the man worked.

Italy is in the midst of a scorching mid-July heatwave, and most factories do not have air conditioning systems.

READ ALSO: Italy’s heatwave peaks with 16 cities on red alert as Tuscany burns

The Fiom CGIL metal workers’ union say they have recently received multiple reports of factory temperatures reaching over 35 degrees Celsius in the Piedmont area. At the Mirafiori Fiat manufacturing plant in Turin, workers have reportedly recorded highs of 40 degrees.

A previous strike called by auto parts workers on Tuesday protested the “intense pace of work” workers are required to keep up in the “unbearable heat of these past few days”.

“There are many of our members who are reporting illnesses in the factory due to the intense heat of the last few weeks,” Edi Lazzi, Fiom CGIL’s Turin general secretary, told La Stampa.

Italy does not have a nationally unified labor code, but worker’s rights are enshrined in the constitution and touched on in various laws. 

According to the site Lavori e diretti (work and rights), article 2087 of the Italian civil code requires employers to protect employees’ health and wellbeing. 

National legislation does not require companies to keep the workplace within any particular temperature range, though workplace accident insurance institute Inail recommends in summer there should not be more than a seven degree difference between indoor and outdoor temperatures.

A 2015 Supreme Court case recognised the right of workers to stop working while retaining the right to pay in excessively cold conditions.

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CLIMATE CRISIS

Italy warns of water shortages after winter drought

Millions of people in Italy could see their water supplies disrupted again this spring, as authorities warned of likely shortages due to the severe drought hitting northern regions.

Published: 24 February 2023 11:50 CET
Italy warns of water shortages after winter drought

Households in some parts of Italy could face having their tap water supply limited in the coming months after dry weather led to a winter drought, Italy’s ANBI water resource association has warned.

“According to the data we have available, it is reasonable to believe that the tap water of at least three and a half million Italians cannot be taken for granted,” said ANBI President Francesco Vincenzi in a report published on Thursday.

READ ALSO: Why Italy is braced for another major drought this spring

He cited data from Italy’s National Research Council (CNR) which said between six and 15 percent of Italy’s population lives in areas exposed to severe or extreme drought.

The worst affected areas are expected to be northern Italian regions including Piedmont and Lombardy, which were among the parts of the country hit by water shortages in spring 2022.

The Italian government will hold a crisis meeting on Wednesday, March 1st, to discuss plans for mitigating the impact of the water shortage, Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper reported.

dried-up river

A photo taken on July 5, 2022, shows a dried-up stretch of the Po river in the northern region of Veneto. (Photo by Andrea PATTARO / AFP)

“The problem of drought is serious,” Corriere quoted Environment Minister Gilberto Pichetto as saying.

“We’ve only had half of the average amount of snow. We find ourselves with watercourses, lakes and reservoirs in a very critical state, and hydroelectric basins in extreme difficulty.”

The head of Italy’s department for civil protection, Nello Musumeci, said Italy needed “a realistic rationing plan”.

In summer 2022, the government declared a state of emergency in five Italian regions after a drought followed by early and particularly severe heatwaves left Italians lakes and rivers parched.

As a result, towns in regions including Piedmont, Liguria, Lombardy and Trentino last summer introduced water-rationing measures ranging from nightly restrictions on tap water to bans on using water for  washing cars and filling swimming pools.

The low level of rain and snowfall this winter has only exacerbated the situation, ANBI said, meaning things could be worse in 2023.

READ ALSO: The three Italian regions hit hardest by the climate crisis

The level of the Po, Italy’s biggest river, was at a record low, while rivers and lakes in central Italy were also under “extreme stress”, it added.

Melting snow is an important source of water for many areas in spring and summer and the lack of it this year is expected to prove problematic.

Alpine snow is Italy’s most important water reserve, since it supplies the Po River basin.

Whether or not Italy will face a drought as serious as last year is expected to largely depend on weather conditions in the next three months, which are usually the rainiest time of the year for many regions in the north.

ANBI said Italy must immediately plug the holes in its aqueducts, which it said lose 40 percent of water to leaks, and build new reservoirs to collect rainwater if it wants to prevent regular water shortages in future.

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