[ad_1]
The equation between workplace accident and Covid-19 contagion, worthy of receiving Inail’s insurance coverage, has set off the alarm. The business world (especially small and medium-sized ones) has perceived it as a danger in view of the reopening: it could lead to the participation of the employer at the criminal level for the crimes of injury or involuntary manslaughter, in the event of the death of the infected worker . The debate sparked by the issue led Inail to a clarification note that better explained the terms of the entrepreneurs’ participation. With reference to the ongoing debate on employer criminal liability and civil liability profiles for Covid-19 infections of workers for professional reasons, it is useful to specify that recognition as an accident at work does not automatically result in liability verification or criminal for the employer. There are different conditions for the payment of INAIL compensation for the protection of accidents at work and for the recognition of civil and criminal liability of the employer who has not respected the rules for the protection of health and safety at work. These responsibilities must be rigorously determined, through proof of intentional misconduct or fault of the employer, with totally different criteria from those provided for the recognition of the right to Inail insurance benefits.
Unions and the virus.
The applause of CGIL comes immediately, which had already been expressed these days through the mouth of Silvino Candeloro, from the Inca CGIL presidential school: We believe that the many honest businessmen, who care about the health of their employees, do not have nothing left to fear. these provisions and would not benefit from a widespread “criminal shield”, which would only benefit those who, even before the pandemic, considered and considered workplace safety and prevention standards as a cost that should be compressed and not an investment. We consider it unacceptable that we want to use the current health emergency, as an alibi to justify a widespread “criminal shield”, which would have the effect of transforming the Covid-19 injury into a common disease, with consequent reduction in Inail’s performance, in favor of infected workers, both for work and during travel.
The criminal shield for entrepreneurs in company infections
But the true fear of employers who may be involved, even if the employer’s liability is not objective, but he has complied with all the provisions of the rules and regulations. That is why many propose more detailed rules or a kind of penal shield that excludes the responsibility of the employer in case of contagion by coronavirus in the company, if it has provided its employees with individual protections, kept the workplace disinfected, supervised interpersonal distances and assured the quota, as required by national legislation.
CGIL expands the field.
While the CGIL has welcomed INAIL’s clarification on the issue of criminal consequences for employers, the national secretary, Rossana Dettori, stresses that there are still other problems to solve: workers, we still face problematic and very worrying problems . We have read with some surprise the interview given by the president of Inail, Franco Bettoni, in which it is stated that, in order to recognize the accident in case of the Covid-19 virus, Inail requires very precise documentation of the occasion. and the contagion method. In our opinion, this contradicts what the Institute itself declared in circular 13, published a few weeks ago, which assigned the simple presumption mechanism (that is, an almost automatic recognition) to workers in the so-called essential sectors that continued to comply with his duty (for example, in the hospital, in supermarkets, in the agricultural sector), and which, however, did not say anything about all the infections in the companies renounced by the prefects and in the sectors not explicitly mentioned in that document.
