Fragile workers, stories of those who risk their work and their health: “Forced to take advantage of their vacations to avoid being fired. Is smart work recommended? For many, impossible”

“On September 25, the management calls me at the end of the shift. I go and they give me the dismissal for exceeding the behavioral period of illness. The owner, after 25 years of work, tells me that ‘the authorities in charge should take care of my case’, and certainly not him ”. Giovanni sandomenico is a metallurgist from Minerbium, in the province of Bologna where he has been working for a quarter of a century, despite serious health problems for which he remains immunosuppressed with 60% disability. Among the misfortunes, it has to be part of the category of “Fragile workers”, and is among those who, due to Covid, passed the “behavioral period“That is the maximum number of sick leave that an employee is awarded. In recent hours, the president of Lombardy has also addressed fragile workers Attilio fontana asking “to stay at home”, now that the ordinary activity of hospitals has to be skipped to make way for the emergency linked to Covid. It is a pity that many cannot stay at home, because if they do, once their vacations, permits and anything else besides the reduced salary expire, they run the risk of lose job. The fragile are, in fact, the category of workers who should have been protected first, but who were instead abandoned among the risks. dismissal or a salary that, month after month, slides precipitously towards zero, without the parachute of layoffs. As “fragile” and “forgotten”, they live today squeezed between the two contagion curves, without certainty for the future. And since the emergency began, his fate has been pending decrees, amendments and commitments (mostly ignored), like on a crazy roller coaster.

The problems start already in March with the theme of “Beware Italy“. Article 26 provided a specific protection for workers suffering from oncological diseases, immunosuppressed, etc. The protection consisted ofmatch absences made to avoid the risk of contagion to hospitalization, and therefore outside the 180 days beyond which public and private companies can fire. Aside from the cumbersome process, Augusto enlargement forgot about “fragile” and skipped protection, until it was reintroduced with a amendment in the senate that postponed the benefits period from the end of July to October 15, but above all it established that until December 31 (not at the end of the emergency) the same workers “They usually carry out their work in an agile way, also by using a different job included in the same category or workplace, as defined by current collective agreements, or carrying out specific vocational training activities, even remotely”.

And here emerges all the distance between legislator and the world of work, because the activities and tasks that can be carried out “remotely” are limited to certain categories and not to others. They are the fruit of the imagination, in fact, the immunosuppressed cashier in a supermarket who takes the receipts from the sofa at home, the worker who screws the screws in the living room or the transporter that loads and unloads the bricks with the play station. This is precisely the case of Elisabetta S., who suffers from a chronic intestinal disease, Crohn’s disease with a disability of 70%, 104, which subsides with an immunosuppressive drug. And she says that, for the virus, she was tried in March “not suitable at work ”, and have made the disease from March 16 to July 31. Therefore, the fear of achieving the behavior induced her to return to work without going to the competent doctor. She works, yes, but with fear: “I work at the supermarket checkout and I can’t do smart work. Honestly, I am very afraid because in addition to my personal situation that puts me more at risk, there is not even much respect from clients ”.

Although the case of the “fragile” has arisen for some time, since October 16 that the equation between illness and hospitalization is no longer automatic and cases of dismissal are multiplying. In the meantime, in fact, the Senate has put a patch on, but only for the public. An amendment modified theArticle 87 del Cura Italia has in fact established that “the period of illness or quarantine with active surveillance, or in fiduciary home stay with active surveillance, by employees of the administrations (…), by COVID-19, is equivalent to the period of hospitalization and cannot be accounted for for the period of employment“. What is underlined in the last sentence is the novelty that makes the difference between being fired -at the end of the emergency- or not. But it is true ifonly for “administration employees”. For everyone else? At the moment there are no indications.

The “fragile” have tried to protest. But by its own condition they can’t go out on the street. They are chained to their own fragility. So they mobilized as they could. Like a trophy, the lady Luciana of Cassina De Pecchi, in Lombardy, exposes on Facebook a letter to Mattarella with a request for help and a courteous response, promising to sensitize those responsible. Others have bombarded institutions and parliamentarians with emails seeking help and ending this odyssey. Matteo, a paraplegic child from Bologna presented two video complaints on YouTube, explaining that in order not to be fired for exceeding his behavior, he took a forced vacation but the salary problem remains. “Since the 8th of this month, the INPS stopped paying and I have been on sick leave for more than six months. Fortunately, the company does not fire me, but I work in marking and it cannot be done from my bedroom ”.

The stories that come to light are disarming, the problem spares no one. Francesco Giudice belongs to the category of fragile workers and works in Fatebenefratelli of Naples. “I am immunosuppressed in therapy – he says – with a drug that does not allow me to be in contact with the public while I work in a hospital, temporarily disabled by the company doctor, where I work according toDpcm article 83 on September 4 he was put on sick leave without pay. This situation of mine also affects four other colleagues of mine. But it is a common situation, there are thousands of people inserted in other types of companies who cannot practice smart and agile work as envisaged in thearticle 83 Within the competence of companies, you stay home without pay or leave from the company. This compensation choice depends on the companies or public or private or local negotiation with the unions, we did not have this opportunity and we find ourselves without salary from September 1 to January 31, waiting for this state of emergency to end. with January 31 because if the extension continues, the state of emergency will be extended, we will continue to be fragile workers at home without pay at the risk of being fired ”.

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